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CheddarPlease on 13 January 2025
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archbrix said:

The problem with Sony making a handheld is that it will run into the same problem that Nintendo did: Having to support two systems. No company is exempt from that in today's market. Look at how long it takes Sony's games to arrive for the PS5 now. Imagine if it had to develop for a PSP 3 as well.

The only way that Sony could realistically compete with Nintendo in Japan would be to make the Playstation 6 a hybrid system and that would critically limit the company's mantra of delivering a cutting-edge home console with its next entry. Why on earth would Sony want to fight an uphill battle against Nintendo in Japan when it can do what it does best, which is make a very western oriented console for its biggest IPs, which also appeal to the west: Spider-Man, God of War, The Last of Us, Uncharted, Horizon, Helldivers, etc.

I realize that it is very unfortunate for Playstation fans in Japan that Sony has taken this route, but in the long run it is all the better for it when you consider how Sony fares now on a global scale. Plenty of room in the western gaming market for both a "Playstation" and a "Switch" to not only coexist, but for both to thrive. But ultimately, it does result in Playstation giving up competing with Nintendo in its home country.

I made a post about this in another forum a few days ago, but I'll reiterate what I said here b/c I think it's pretty relevant:

Honestly, I feel like the PS5 is in an interesting situation right now. It's arguably Sony's most successful console to date, at least in terms of raw revenue and profits, but I feel similarly to it as I do the Wii, in that it has clearly exposed a lot of vulnerabilities in Sony's business model that could very much come back to bite then in the next generation, as Nintendo learned with the Wii.

Firstly, one very clear issue with the PS5 that has been somewhat masked by the high per-unit sales and consistent sales pace is that sales in Europe and Japan are very noticeably beginning to lag behind the PS4, likely due to growing competition from the PC space and economic woes. This has been compensated for by increased sales in NA, almost certainly due to Playstation continuing to steal console players from Xbox. If not for that, its sales trajectory would not look nearly as rosy.

Another issue is that Sony has arguably reached the limit of their current business model. AAA games are harder to produce than ever with diminishing returns. Hardware has also gotten way more pricey lately, with the loss-leader model of console sales collapsing. I wouldn't be surprised if the next-gen PS6 costs $700, and for what? Even cutting-edge PCs nowadays don't offer a significant bump in graphical fidelity over the PS5, unless ur way up the Nvidia pipeline, which given the costs of their GPUs will likely prevent them from making any significant headway into the console market. The final straw has to be if Switch 2 is capable of running current-gen multi-plats, which would render the current status quo of market segmentation between the two companies practically null and void.

What we can say for sure is that Sony's back does seem to be against a wall in a shrinking market sector. With Nintendo utterly dominant in the handheld market and Microsoft and Steam encroaching with PC and PC handhelds, Sony's best bet at this point is hoping that they can consolidate what remains of the home console market by forcing Xbox out of it. Only time will tell if that will work out for them...