Uhhh, the margins on consoles aren't that high, if not selling at a loss. They make most of their money from game sales and accessories. So while you, indeed, need to own a console to play the games (why would you buy games without one?), it is quite foolish to say that "they want to sell consoles, not games" when games are the biggest producers of money for them.

If MS or Sony had the option of me either buying a PS4/XBone or 5 games (as in, one and not the other), they'd pick 5 games in an instant

Are you trolling?

Do you know how big racing is in Europe? To call GT and Forza "niche" is ridiculous. How is it that GT can sell nearly 5M in Europe, not unlike a Fifa game, but it's "niche". 

How is Halo "not niche", with having lots of fans being a reason for that......and GT has more fans? 

And Uncharted wouldn't stand a chance against MGS? Why not? The last two games are 6m+ sellers (higher than the highest selling MGS, Sons of Liberty). 

And you go call Lara a "gaming superstar"....but it's going head to head, day and date, with Fallout 4, but it's Uncharted that can't compete? Even though the rebooted Tomb Raider is more or less an Uncharted clone?

Is this Bizarro world?

they make most money with 3rd party games, not 1st party, so they need alot of market share to make alot of money.

i doubt halo 5 will make m$ alot of money. sure it will sell millions, but they will use alot of money on marketing and the dev cost werent small.  the game was made to sell consoles, to get money from 3rd party sells and subscriptions.

Everyone knows that Playstation really shines at the last few years of the gen while xbox is steady throughout most of the gen.

It's been said repeatedly that games/console sales from Oct-Dec are equal to or greater than the first nine months combined so.... even up against heavy competition, from a business standpoint, it makes sense to launch this time of year, even against the heavy hitters.

Of course, we gamers like buying games all year round and of course there are always going to be some flops.

racing is big in europe, but its not for casuals, its not made with casuals in mind and its not marketed with casuals in mind.

fifa isnt niche because football is religion in europe, and its the biggest by far.

ND games just sell well in slow years, the writting and the gameplay could never stand against realy good games(last year and this year would be realy bad for uncharted 4 or 0815zombieshooter 2 because we had some realy great 3rd party games.) they are like big action movies, badly written full of cliches,easy to disgest and heavly marketed.  and sells doesnt mean quality, or django unchained would be alot worse than any transformers movie.

Lol you're just on a role aren't ya buddy.

CoD will always be there, but certainly in a year when FO4 and Star Wars battlefront are also coming out (assuming SWBF will actually be any good as a game) then shifting Ratchet & Clank and Uncharted to early 2016 was a lucky decision (I don't think it was a smartly planned out decision, Sony got lucky again just like they got lucky going with GDDR5 RAM). Even though Uncharted wouldn't sell more than CoD or FO4 in a head to head match up, Bethesda and Activision are probably happy for it not to be directly competing. EA is probably very happy to not be competing with Uncharted, because competing with FO and CoD on PS4 and additionally Halo 5 and _ROTR is going to be hard enough for a Star Wars game with NO STORY WHATSOEVER.

I think Microsoft division is smart. They own big franchises that are online multiplayer centric. They have Gears, Halo and Minecraft. Going forward, online multiplayer centric games are what is going to really sell a console. Especially since everything is going social media / community based. Now days, most people can't justify a linear single player game for 60 dollars. It has to either be a open world game with a lot of things to do (which neither company has) or a compelling online multiplayer. Else, the game will be sold back to gamestop.

You lose all credibility when you think TR can compete while uncharted cant.  I dont know where you have been all these years but uncharted > TR a long time ago.