Reality, Console Industry has become Stagnated.

[RolStoppable]

Azzanation said:

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Example 1: Sony's PS5 was the fastest selling console at launch, it's on track to match the PS4 sales wise. Yet why are they cutting jobs, closing studios, and bringing games to PC? Because it's about improving their dollar, not matching what they achieved last gen. The only way Sony can grow is to expand outside the console walls. Hence the PC ports. They wouldn't do it if they are way ahead of targets. Unlike Nintendo, they have thrashed their last console, the WiiU. However, the Switch 2 has a giant target on its back now because it needs to do better than the Switch One, otherwise we will see Nintendo take similar action to Sony and MS.

Yeah... no. Absolutely not.

Nintendo didn't lay off developers during the 3DS and Wii U era despite investors asking for cost-cutting measures. Nintendo's response was that development staff is an asset, because games drive hardware sales. Therefore laying off developers would only be a short term benefit, but then have very bad consequences in the mid to long term. And this is the correct thinking.

There were other things that investors repeatedly asked for during the dire Wii U days, but Nintendo did not cave in. That's because Nintendo is not reliant on investors' money to get their funding for their next big project.

We do not need to speculate if Nintendo would take similar actions to Sony and MS, because we already have the history of Nintendo not even considering such moves because such moves would be detrimental to their core business. When we know that Nintendo did not consider these moves when they were posting losses, then it's safe to say that Nintendo won't consider them either when they are in the situation of Sony now where profit margins have declined by around 5 percent points.

The point is that you can't make a post about all companies being the same when that is clearly not the case due to Nintendo being an outlier in so many different aspects of this business. You are making the all too common mistake that you think the industry works this way because that's how it has to work. But Nintendo not only clearly shows that it does not have to be this way, but also that you can actually be more profitable by doing it differently, and that there's no mutual exclusivity between high profitability and high customer satisfaction.

You begin your post by talking about the reality of the real world and end with the question if anyone would rather see their favorite company bite the dust or make as much money as possible by going multiplatform. This conclusion is extremely detached from reality when you've thrown Nintendo in the mix, and even if you explicitly excluded Nintendo from the topic, your conclusion would still only somewhat work.

I still find it a bit puzzling that Sony, despite their current sales and black numbers, would rather do things the Microsoft way than taking a few cues from Nintendo. I'm not talking about the last few months, but the last several years since Jim Ryan took the reins of the PS division. Because clearly, Microsoft is not the company you should strive to be like in gaming. PlayStation is still making profits every quarter, so their recent business decisions strike me as an overreaction that could bite them in the butt in the long run. As a console manufacturer they have to look at first party software as more than just the games making money, but also as a driver of hardware sales which in turn increase collected royalty fees from third parties and PS+ subscriptions; this isn't as simple of an equation as putting games on the PC and making more profit overall by default, because some money is undoubtedly going to be missed out on on the PS console side.