In my opinion these forums go beyond being merely about game sales and into being about the gaming companies. There have always been, for as long as I have been here at least, many conversations about the revenues, profits and losses of the major players in the gaming industry.
This does in some way effect the future of Sony's gaming (even if the effect is small) because Sony operates as a single large company and in the end wants to turn an overall profit. If it loses somewhere it needs to profit elsewhere.