Console manufacturers put billions on the line when they launch a gaming platform, this makes it perfectly reasonable that they get to dictate the rules instead of the outsiders who would like to make games for them.

Third parties ditched Nintendo for Sega (and later Sony, and later Microsoft) because they got more power there. Why do you think has gaming nowadays unfinished $60 games that receive large day 1 patches, not to mention paid DLC and microtransactions?

You're right. It'd be smarter for Sony to be like Nintendo and not listen to 3rd parties at all. That worked out well for the WiiU right? It's just flooded with games!

You seem confused.

The Wii U is what Nintendo gets when it tries to appease 3rd parties. Poor differentiation, which bores customers and leads to competition on price/performance that only benefits the publishers.

Yeah weak HW and a useless tablet controller really gave 3rd parties want they want. Good job Nintendo. 

The Wii was the console that ignored the 3rd parties, thoroughly differentiated itself, earning more profit than any home console in history and commanding better third party support as a result.

The Wii was also lightning in a bottle. Every other console depends on 3rd parties to survive.

But I must be confused, too. I'm not clear how anything Nintendo does excuses Sony for being a puppet company willing to decieve its "customers" on behalf of its real clients. You really don't see a problem when the customer that's buying a DRM solution becomes more important than the customer that buys computer hardware?

Decieve it's customers? As far as I can tell Sony showed off their games on PS4 hardware. Again, 3rd parties use PCs to show off their games in the best light. It's like models almost always get photoshopped in magazines.

Uh, so Sony bears no responsibility for the games shown at its own conference?

'Cause I'm pretty sure people are expecting to see Playstation games at the Sony conference, not PC games. To suggest that Sony just does whatever a publisher tells them to do, even at their own conference, like some kind of obedient, well-trained hound...

... encapsulates the state of the console market quite effectively, actually. 

Sony probably approaches a developer or vice versa and they hit up an agreement that sony will dedicate a certain time slot at the conference for the developer. The developer decides what they want to show and that's it.

I'm sure its not that simple. Sony will probably go over what exactly they will show and how long it will take, and even what the developer would say. After all, they don't want the developer speaking badly about playstation or in favour of the competiiton.