Null, Sony BAILED OUT Square when their movie flopped. I don't care what Square says about Sony not having a say. If you think they don't, you are naive. That bail out probably had many strings attached. Sony has broken anti-trust law before and gotten away with it, why wouldn't you think they would do it again with Square? Don't believe everything you read.
As for your reasoning behind exclusives being more important? Yes, but they'll probably only be coming from First Parties. 3rd Party developers will do what they have to do TO MAKE MONEY. If there is more money by releasing a game on 3 consoles that each have millions if units sold, which there definitely is, they will do that. 3rd party exclusives are going to become rare IMO. I actually think there will be more exclusives on the X-Box, just because of the advanced hardware. There are games coming out for the Box that simply can't be played on the other systems.
And lets face it, XBox and Gamecube are probably going to succeed and thrive by all accounts of North American sales and foreign pre-orders (XBox) and sales(Gamecube). Will they beat out PS2? Who knows, probably not. Sony has too far of a lead at this point. But THINGS CHANGE. Remember when Sega ruled the gaming world? I do. They don't anymore. Time will tell.
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