I'm going to take a different angle here and see if I can work some reason out of a different pore

I've yet to read or see anything saying Microsoft paid Square huge amounts of money to sway them. But for the sake of argument we'll say that happened. Why then is the blame solely on Microsoft for this change. Square accepted the offer and made the decision. Its not like like Microsoft blackmailed them into it

And ...you admit the game may turn out the same regardless of exclusivity or not. Which is true. But you turn around and say that we'll never know, and that's somehow a problem. I don't see how ignorance of something that itself is unknown or possibly even invalid, clarifies a real problem