| NiKKoM said: They had the largest wallet and "moneyhatted" (waving away fees and paying for all the advertising) the third parties.. the others couldn't do anything.. |
True, though games were not so easy to port back then. Sony, despite being theoretical last place at the beginning of the 5th gen, would have been an incredible gamble for 3rd parties to be working on, considering they had no console gaming experience at the time. Had Nintendo not scared off 3rd parties, they may have been reluctant to shift away from the current market leader.
As for largest wallet, Sony probably did at the time, but I bet they weren't willing to risk the entire conglomerate's revenue on the Playstation. In other words, there would have been a price point where Sony would have said "Ehh, it's not worth it" and pulled out (this was before the game industry had over 100 million users, keep in mind). Whereas Nintendo and Sega had the entire company value at their expense, and then some (theyd be willing to go into massive debt if they had to, since their companies sole job is gaming)
