Here's the way I sort of see it: (I have a hunch that I'm going to say things that are unpopular, but I think that's because some of the things that people may view as a negative are not necessarily negative in my eyes. I'd like to see your take on this.)

I agree that Sony has generally been the one to play it safe, but it's mostly because of the part of the market that they have control of. It's not that they aren't a creative company, but that their product is targeting a market comprised of people that want a traditional gaming experience. They are not so much trying to invent something new as they are simply trying to perfect said experience.

Since they put PSVR, something entirely new on the gen, and make games for it, plus have plenty of different genres and games released (new IPs as well) the only way to say Sony is playing safe is because they released less games and most if not all have done very well commercially and critically. But having success in all you have launched doesn't make playing safe, more like playing smart or just succeeding. And when game development take longer to do it is kinda hard keep similar output to last gen, and since they don't need to convince people to get back to Playstation they also don't need to bet on the 60% of their output making loss and only 20% profiting. Still we got Racing game, Open World, FPS, Action, Platformer, Hero Games, etc. Hardly less than MS output or "risks".

Relatively speaking, in a market with only three major players, Nintendo has historically been the one to take risks. As a result, I think this is why Nintendo is overrepresented in gaming communities, as they are an easy company to like (don't take that the wrong way). In other words, I think Nintendo "appears" as though they deserve the most market share (let me explain).

Risk on HW maybe, risk on SW nope. Their games use less resources and sell more than most titles from other companies. Just look to the thread where someone said Sony is reaching Nintendo level of sales of SW and all the denial it received.

Sony and Microsoft have created eco-systems that rely largely on third party software, and as such, the overall size of that market is less volatile than what Nintendo aims for. Nintendo has had major successes and major defeats, while the disparity between Microsoft and Sony's biggest defeat compared to biggest success is not as large.

You can say rely, but since Sony have made several blockbusters and steady launching them, plus GOTY contenders and winners in spade on the gen (some years with over 3 contenders) it is more like that at this moment the platform is where 3rd party can thrive not one that depends heavily on them.

Here's what I think, although I'm curious if people agree or not: Hypothetically speaking, if Sony disappeared, another company (possibly Microsoft, maybe a newcomer) would fill most of that gap. Contrastly, if Nintendo disappeared, the market would shrink drastically. And this is one of those negatives I mentioned in the beginning of the post. I think some may read this as if I'm saying "anyone can do what Sony is doing", and that's not at all what I mean. The reason Sony is where they are at is because Sony has done it best. So much so that Nintendo seemingly decided to re-strategize and focus more on their own thing. But if they disappeared, whoever is next best would have to suffice. That's what I'm saying. :)

How would the market shrink so drastically (talking about consoles) if it haven't shrink at all when they failed on N64, GC and WiiU? And since Nintendo isn't doing Handhelds exclusively as far as we know then that major shrink wouldn't really happen.

Both companies have separate goals, and provide consumers with vastly different products. So much so that owning both a Nintendo console and a Sony console is common compared to owning a Microsoft console and a Sony console (no source; assuming this based on anecdotal evidence).

No need for source (it may have changed this gen who knows) but we have seem plenty of sources on Wii and WiiU that a lot of its owner also had A PS3/4 or X360/1, which would defeat your previous point.

(Anyways, it's late, and at this point I don't know which side I've upset more. :P)

Here's the way I sort of see it: (I have a hunch that I'm going to say things that are unpopular, but I think that's because some of the things that people may view as a negative are not necessarily negative in my eyes. I'd like to see your take on this.)

I agree that Sony has generally been the one to play it safe, but it's mostly because of the part of the market that they have control of. It's not that they aren't a creative company, but that their product is targeting a market comprised of people that want a traditional gaming experience. They are not so much trying to invent something new as they are simply trying to perfect said experience.

Relatively speaking, in a market with only three major players, Nintendo has historically been the one to take risks. As a result, I think this is why Nintendo is overrepresented in gaming communities, as they are an easy company to like (don't take that the wrong way). In other words, I think Nintendo "appears" as though they deserve the most market share (let me explain).

Sony and Microsoft have created eco-systems that rely largely on third party software, and as such, the overall size of that market is less volatile than what Nintendo aims for. Nintendo has had major successes and major defeats, while the disparity between Microsoft and Sony's biggest defeat compared to biggest success is not as large.

Here's what I think, although I'm curious if people agree or not: Hypothetically speaking, if Sony disappeared, another company (possibly Microsoft, maybe a newcomer) would fill most of that gap. Contrastly, if Nintendo disappeared, the market would shrink drastically. And this is one of those negatives I mentioned in the beginning of the post. I think some may read this as if I'm saying "anyone can do what Sony is doing", and that's not at all what I mean. The reason Sony is where they are at is because Sony has done it best. So much so that Nintendo seemingly decided to re-strategize and focus more on their own thing. But if they disappeared, whoever is next best would have to suffice. That's what I'm saying. :)

Both companies have separate goals, and provide consumers with vastly different products. So much so that owning both a Nintendo console and a Sony console is common compared to owning a Microsoft console and a Sony console (no source; assuming this based on anecdotal evidence).

(Anyways, it's late, and at this point I don't know which side I've upset more. :P)

I saw this after it was first posted, and I thought it was a "quoted for truth" type of thing, until a couple hours later I revisit the thread and notice upon closer inspection that pretty much everything I said was disagreed with, even the things that I had not intended or imagined would be debatable. Now whenever something like this is disagreed upon in it's entirety, I tread carefully, as it's generally difficult to reason with people that have a very strong bias in favor of one thing or another.

But then I noticed that it was from none other than the legendary Don himself. It would be a disservice to not engage in friendly discourse with a god among men. I'm truly not worthy.

(I'll try to remove some paragraphs so the quote isn't too long.)

Sure I will agree that Sony is more reliant on 3rd parties than Nintendo. But if they were reliant as it seemed you implied then they would be more close to Xbox level of sales instead of dominating console game HW sales since they entered the market.

Don the PS4 didn't outsell the XB1 at launch because of the superior SW it had, in fact for the first 1 or 2 years the XB1 had offered better SW than the PS4. Remember the PS4 draught everyone was saying? Greatness Awaits with pictures of skeletons? PS4s first big hitter was Bloodborne however that didn't change or affect the PS4's sales in any form or matter. The PS4 was selling so well due to the lack of competition and when I mean lack of, I refer to the consumer hatred towards the WiiU and XB1.

In the PS1 era, Sony didn't have great 1st party games either yet the PS1 outsold the N64 and the N64 was in a league of its own when it came to delivering the best 1st party games. Same can be said with the PS2 were Sega and Nintendo still had better 1st party output yet the PS2 outsold them all due to again.. marketing. The Dreamcast and Gamecube were no different to the WiiU and XB1 this gen.

Sony really only started hitting home runs with there 1st party games with the PS3. Sony never dominated a market based off there own 1st party games. PS4's 1st party games came later in its life but by than the gen has already spoken. However like the PS1 and PS2, it wouldn't have mattered because even if you take away all of PS4's big hitting AAA Exclusive games this gen, the PS4 would have still outsold the WiiU and XB1 based off its marketing and competition.

It really goes to show how safe Sony play it because there have been two generations where Sony dominated in sales yet when you look at there competitors both gens ended up with a flop and a underselling system while Sony kept things the same. Just look at the DS controller design, it resembles Sony's stance of not changing while you look at Nintendo, Sega and Xbox, there are always changes.

We are both banned from talking to one another although you usually forgets it. But since this post seems well behaved I'll reply.

Than why do you reply to my posts in other threads? The Site admins are not stupid, just because you didn't directly reply by hitting the reply button is still replying to my posts.

Yes Xbox had more 3rd party exclusives than PS4 on the beginning of the gen (speculation is that devs expected MS to win the gen at that moment). But users had seem MS drop the ball on the late life of their consoles on Xbox og and X360 with very few AAA games, while Sony kept launching the best games they could until the brink of the next gen (just see PS3 with TLOU and GT6 coming in the same year and in GT case months away from PS4). That had people trust on Sony support for the system. You can try to dismiss or lower the impact, put it will stand.

That has nothing to do with how successful the next console will be.  WiiU to Switch proves your point invalid.

Sony had plenty of great exclusives on PS1 and some of them were 1st party at the moment or became after acquisition. To say Dreamcast had a great 1st party output is pushing the boundaries a little, if that was true it wouldn't have suffered such a major and fast defeat.

They had no where near the quality of 1st party games as Nintendo and Sega did. 

But not sure where you got confused on the conversation, I was talking of the Sony of today with him, he is talking about Sony, MS or Nintendo leaving the market, that would happen based on the content of today and reliance of today not of PS1. Today on PS4, Sony is a lot less reliant on 3rd party than they were on PS1 and they are much less reliant than Xbox. Because Xbox have been cheaper than PS4 since basically the second year on the market and had most of the 3rd party games (exceptions outside of games not much relevant outside of Japan are very few) so if Sony was as reliant on the 3rd parties as in the past then most likely Xbox would have had a chance of catching up. Also if Nintendo 1st party was unbeatable they wouldn't have lost all the gens I have mentioned. All companies depend on larger or lesser degree of their own 1st party and 3rd parties to deny that is just plain wrong.

Majority of companies rely heavily on 3rd party, its really only Nintendo who can continue to sell systems based on there own software. Sony are good at marketing there system and playing it safe while as we have seen with Sega, Nintendo and Xbox, they try doing newer innovating things. Just look how different they are compared to the previous console. The 360 to OG Xbox, The DreamCast to Sega Saturn, The Wii to GameCube, than look at the PS1, PS2, PS3.. All same controllers with better hardware.

And sure I would expect you to try and take away credit from the success of a console that were able to dominate 3 gens without any contest and on the one they made several mistakes were able to overcome and still outsell its main competitor.

In junk time sales? sure, but the 360 was hands down a more successful platform regardless. One company drops support to prepare for the next gen while the other company continues support in that current market. That's not beating your competition, that's the competition leaving because the race was already over. The Dreamcast flopped while the Gamecube wasn't marketed well, that helped the PS2. The WiiU flopped and the XB1 wasn't marketed very well, that helped the PS4. Its pretty obvious as to why Sony has these blow out generations and that's because the DreamCast, WiiU and XB1 didn't play it safe, you know who did play it safe? The PS2 and PS4.

Sorry to tell you, but success hardly come from playing safe, it comes from playing smart. You change what you need and keep what is doing well, but no company could be as dominant in a field for 20 years just playing safe.

Wrong. Sony play it safe and in some cases smart and safe. They usually wait for someone else to make the change and if it works they than go in and mirror it. EG PS Move stolen straight from the Wii's success and PSN taken straight from Xbox Live. I can name you a list of things Sony take that they have been doing since the PS1 days like Rumble packs and its no different to the PS5 with HD Rumble etc. Thats playing it safe. Taking risks is when you try to push something no one has done before.

My main point out of all this is Sony rely on 3rd party just as much as Xbox do. The PS4 and XB1 would do horrible in sales if it wasn't for the 3rd party support.