I think it more a problem of me letting the article dictate the terms of the discussion. Did Microsoft publish my whipping boy Call of Duty? Of course not, one can play CoD on a Playstation just as well, and any undesirable traits of the game lie at the feet of Activision.
It might be more accurate to bitch about Xbox Game Pass and the like, as there seems to be a hard push to just rent your access to games with a monthly payment. Or the acquisition of studios (as TFA makes a point of) so that $COMPANY has exlusive access to $HOT_GAME.
Also, your last sentence about exclusivity is a really strange point when comparing to Nintendo - which literally only does that. (And has extremely vicious customer unfriendly pricing. Breath of the Wild is still $60 5 years later).
Sony has been making tons of fun games to play with zero loot boxes in the game.
God of War, Last of Us, Uncharted, Spider-Man, Ghost of Tsushima, and Horizon are all top selling videos games in the past few years and all of them contain zero loot boxes.
All of them are highly loved video games as well.
Sony spent the last few decades buying gaming studio to make fun games for them. Almost all of them have nothing to do with loot boxes.