Even if that was true, selling 100 million consoles is not niche by any stretch of the imagination. Whether Sony wants to admit it or not, PlayStation is mainstream, it always has been mainstream. Even past consoles were. The OG PlayStation actually wasn't the Hardcore niche gamers console aimed at diehard gaming nerds. That was the Sega Saturn, the PlayStation instead aimed at a broader audience, ones who were into movies and music and didn't see the appeal of video games. Essentially, it was a Wii-like strategy, before the Wii. The PS2 was a similar deal, with its DVD support alone selling consoles by the truckloads. The moment when Sony did decide to double down on the niche hardcore PlayStation crowd with the early PS3 era, they suffered for it. Nobody's going to pay $600 for an over-complicated media box with inferior third party ports and software droughts due to needlessly obtuse architecture.

But when they designed the PS4 with simple hardware and a wider audience of gamers in mind. Well surprise, surprise, they're back to dominating the console market. Basically, while I doubt we'll ever get a product as over-designed as the PS3 again, Sony seems to once again misunderstand just how popular PlayStation as a brand is. It's one of the most recognizable names in gaming, even people who don't play games on consoles know what PlayStation is. Now there's nothing wrong with targeting a niche audience if you're a startup or a name that was never really popular to begin with. But for a name as big as PlayStation, Sony needs to keep it big by targeting a wide audience with the PS5.

Yes, but it wasn't exclusively for hardcore gamers either. It was made for gamers period. Doesn't matter if you're young, old, hardcore CoD Player, or casual Minecraft explorer. PS4 was made for all kinds of gamers. In fact that "gamers-first" mentality is why it trounced the Xbox One at first, which was focused more on being an always online media box than a platform focused on gaming.

I don't expect Sony to start pushing away AA + A developers. Just look at the amount of indies Sony has published/collaborated on, the VR developers they support, and the amount of "niche" Japanese games on the PS4. Nothing indicates they're shifting to solely focus on AAA level content. The censorship issue seems to be blown out of proportion. To me it sounds like they want to start off the generation with a stronger launch of AAA exclusives/content compared to the PS4. The only thing that would make a PS5 launch a failure would be an incredibly high price point ($599+). I doubt Sony makes this mistake again. We might get a stronger machine than previously imagined, but I'd bet Sony would rather take a $100+ loss on hardware, and break even with software/subscriptions.

MS does not have the same amount of juggernaught IP's as Sony does. God of War, Uncharted & Horizon:Zero Dawn will eclipse the highest selling Halo, with TLOU:PT.II doing so as well. More importantly, Gears + Halo have taken a massive dip in popularity this generation, and nothing suggests this trend will change, especially since the original developers of these IP's are no longer working on them. SIE franchises well sell more, review better, and move more hardware, compared to MS IP's. Its going to take more than a few studio acquisitions to overcome that. 

Some people are really worried about PS5 not winning.

PS4 was successful because it was a console made for all types of gamers not just a niche hardcore audience. Price point helped a lot here too.

Censorship is not a laughable criticism, its a minor disappointment to a varied market of gamers. If you are okay with censorship in your games than more power to you. If I had a choice to buy a game on two platforms, one was a censored version and the other offered the uncensored version than I personally will buy the uncensored version. I am an adult gamer, I don't need censorship in my games however that's my personal preference so no disrespect if you prefer it.

I think you underestimate MS's IPs. Especially when you include a new IP like Horizon Zero Dawn to Halo. Halo is one of the biggest gaming IPs in the industry. Its like me saying that Ori and the Blind Forest is bigger than Killzone, Infamous, Knack etc. 

Ill give you a couple examples below..

1) Do you think Uncharted, God of War and Horizon ZD are bigger games than Minecraft or World of Warcraft? Becasuce those games are not critically acclaimed anymore and are on the decline soo to say any of those Sony IPs are bigger than Halo is basically the same thing.

2) Did you think in the WiiU era that Uncharted, God of War and Horizon ZD are bigger games than Mario because Mario 3D World on WiiU only sold 5m just like Halo 5 did on the X1?

Just because a game was in the decline doesn't mean the IP has become smaller or dropped in size. God of War was also in the decline on the PS3 and Sony had to Reboot it to get it back on the positive list. Similar story to Halo Infinite. Console sales also add a major handicap to selling 1st party games especially with Sony's heavy bundling as well.

Sony offered cheap bundles for majority of there 1st party line up on a system that has sold more than double the Xbox. Xbox only bundled games like Halo 5 in there more expensive bundles as well as offering digital codes instead of physical copies of the games.

Look no further than last gen when Halo topped Uncharted in sales and Gears topped GoW in sales on the 360 which was on a system that was levelled to the PS3 in sales.

Personally ill take any Rare IP over majority of games on the market, like Perfect Dark, BattleToads and Banjo Kazooie.. so to say MS doesn't have big juggernaut IPs is silly.

Yes certainly Halo and Gears are bigger IPs, that may be the reason they never sold close to what Uncharted and God of War is selling.

Halo has seen a sales decline since the launch of Halo 3, Gears of War has been declining since the 2nd entry, which in comparison to Uncharted and GOW, have seen increases in sales for every major entry in the series. The GOW reboot boosted the franchise into 10+ Million territory, turning it into a juggernaught, not saving it from a decline. 

Bundles boosted UC4 sales for sure, but the same could be said about Halo 3's bundling, and only one of these franchises have sold 15+ Million for a single entry. I'm sure MS counted digital codes for Halo 4 sales like Sony has done for their titles. The user base of the Xbox didn't impact the original Halo at all, and it didn't help Halo: Reach sell more than Halo 3. You're also excluding titles like GT5 and TLOU in your comparison of 360/PS3 exclusive software. Uncharted already surpassed Gears in the PS360 era.

Its not far fetched to assume franchises like Uncharted, Horizon & TLOU will surpass Halo in popularity. These are franchises that can sell 15+ Million on the PS4. I wouldn't be surprised to see TLOU: PT.II sell more than 20 Million. Those Rare IP's are not juggernaughts at least in a commercial sense. Minecraft and Halo are the only juggernaught IP MS owns, and for the former, its a series created before the MS acquisition, and is available for every platform.

I could care less about Halo and Gears despite having the possibility to have them on a superior version on my PC...

It might hurt, maybe not at a major cost but will wait and see. PS4 didnt suffer from censorship because it became a thing closer to the end of its life. PS5 will be launching with censorship in mind and where it can possibly hurt them is if there competitors advertise there games as uncut versions etc. It also depends how far Sony goes with the censorship. If major AAA games get affected by it or if its just visual novels etc. But we have seen DMC5 get censored and it wasnt welcomed by the community.

Yes i will not by a platform if the games get censored if i can buy the same game somewhere else which offers the uncut version.

Would those games sell there figures if the PS4 was sitting on 40m consoles like the X1? If you half the sales there numbers sit roughly around the same.

Halo 4 went on to sell close to 10m copies. Not sure how thats a decline considering it wasnt heavily bundled like Halo 3.

Halo 5 went on to sell close to 5m copies on a platform half the size of the 360 so if the X1 had 90m consoles sold, expect close to 9m sales for Halo 5. These are assumptions however it can play a key roll in selling games.

My point still stands. Just because Mario 3D World sold little on the WiiU doesnt mean the IP is smaller. Takes one good entry to bring the figures back up on a successful console. Much like your point with GOW. Needed a reboot on a high selling system to reach its numbers.

Your point also doesnt make sense. Are you going to tell me Days Gone is bigger than Halo because it has outsold Halo 5? Haha come on now.

Also it doesnt matter who makes the game. The IP is still an IP. Star Wars changed hands to Disney and Star Wars hasnt shrunk in size, in fact its even more popular regardless of its reviews.

And Mario Kart 8, selling 7.7M on WiiU 15M userbase certainly mean it would sell 75M if released on PS2.

There is still a decline regardless of how you reason it.

Halo 1: 5~ million copies.
Halo 2: 8.5 million copies.
Halo 3: 14.5~ million copies.
Halo 4: 10~ million copies.
Halo 5: 5~ million copies.

That is a decline... There was also a decline even with games like Halo Wars 1 vs 2.

We can argue on why that decline happened: I.E. Smaller platform etc'. - However one thing to keep in mind is that Halo 2 sold 8.46~ million copies on the Original Xbox which sold even less hardware units than the XBox One or 360. (24+ million consoles.)

Attach rates are everything... Halo 5 simply had a rocky start... I personally found the lack of content and features in Halo 5 to be a detriment, I got bored of the game and moved onto something else fairly quickly, where-as Halo 3 and 4 kept me interested for a long time... Plus I felt like the Req system ruined things for me, I am not alone in this assessment either, they were common criticism points on the games release.

Long gone were the days when weapons and vehicles were strewn around the map, thus requiring strategy and team work to control vital spawn locations in order to 1-up the enemy team... It made the gameplay more interesting.

Plus visually Halo 5 was extremely average with short draw distances and some animations only updating at 10fps. Ouch.

But you are right, franchise for franchise, Halo is still massive with still a big name in gaming... Let us see what Microsoft can do with Halo infinite. - Will it sell consoles like Halo 3? One thing is for sure... It's certainly going to be a very very pretty game.