I´m not sure about that....
...would lack of options and lack of variety do good for the industry right now?
Considering how the industry is losing weight for some time, maybe it would be better to have just two main manufacturers by now, at least those two would still have (sort of) healthy business, instead of two struggling companies with uncertain futures and one just afloating.
MS offerings are similar to Sony´s, so I think MS could go away without hurting the market at all.
Now if MS and Nintendo join forces in the future, that would be a win-win scenario for both. We would have Sony + Nintendo/MS. Two main manufacturers with great products. Maybe THAT would help the market to grow again. Maybe.
I don´t see how the market would benefit with Nintendo´s absence of the home console. WiiU is not selling well, but its audience would not go to either Sony or MS products anyway - it would go to whatever platform Nintendo decided to develop for, and I doubt they would care, in this hypotetical situation, to develop for another device rather than PC´s, tablets and phones
