Nintendo can dominate the handheld sphere with their kinda games and Sony can dominate the home consoles with theirs. Pc platform is the alternative. I think those 3 are enough for gaming. No need for a 4th or 5th.

I don't think innovation and Playstation really go together these days. They're just improving on tech which is hardly innovative. What you're describing essentially...is Nintendo Switch. And tbh, we don't need another console in the market. It's already an iffy market right now. Naturally, competition is seen as beneficial but not if it's just a clone console which is essentially what it seems you want. I think we're fine the way it is.

   vs.

Not remotely the same experience or functionality.  If you want to play Candy Crush, sure your phone is sufficient for swiping at that small screen where you don't mind running your finger over what you're playing.  And, if you do prefer to play more involved games than the casual crap that dominates mobile, who are you to tell me that I have to play on the exact same device as you?

Top Grossing iPhone - Games United States

Ditto to everything you said, and thank you for going into so much more/better detail than I did.

Give me the Japanese niche crap and indies and I'm happy. Stay away from me with the western blockbusters.

@Italic: 99% of the mobile game market are ripoffs and reskins of each other or from browser games. It's rare that I find something original there, which is very sad.

@Bold: Because these have some standards to which the hardware producers comply. DirectX/OpenGL for Graphics API for example, standardized input devices (keyboard, mouse and optionally gamepad, steering wheel or Joystick - with the possibilty to ket rebinding). Android devices and iPhone/iPad don't really have these. While they generally all ose OpenGL, which version the device can use is a total mess unlike on PC. The only input device as standard is the touchscreen, which gets complicated when you have to use several fingers at once and not nearly as precise as a mouse or even an analog stick. Power of Smartphones and Tablets vary greatly, too - and all want to be able to play the same games, which means they need to take the weakest (and oldest) ones into account, unlike PC where the weakest GPUs are strictly OEM and thus reseved for office only. PCs come with lots of storage space, which some cheap Smartphones still only give you 8GB, not enough for bigger, more complex games.

Finally, the price of games. remember when Super Mario Run got annouced with a 10$ pricetag and that was deemed extremly expensive? Good luck marketing a 60$ game for such a device then!

I seem to be quite isolated with my opinion but in my mind Nintendo with the Switch *is* that other console platform that challenges Sony. Sure, the philosophies are different (hybrid vs. home console, arcade roots vs. more "PC-like" gaming roots, multiplayer focus vs. single player / online focus) but at least for me these platforms are definitely competing for my attention. I don't play as many games anymore and my PS4 / Vita have gotten considerably less play time since the Switch launch.

Sure, Sony would drop prices (and do other things) more aggressively if there was as much head-to-head competition as last generation but competitors often just cannibalize each other.
To use a little Formula 1 analogy: Sony vs. Microsoft is a bit like Formula 1 from 2014-2016. It's Mercedes vs. Mercedes. It's pretty boring. There is almost no difference in philosophy and as a customer I can't vote with my wallet to tell the market in which direction I want it to head. Sony vs. Nintendo, on the other hand, is like 2017 Formula 1: Mercedes vs. Ferrari. Different teams with different philosophies fighting against each other. It's a lot more interesting and broadens the market. I prefer a growing market over a stable / shrinking one with only one type of gaming machine present.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

Such a laugh!

Devil's Advocate: What about VR?

I mean, I think VR is a waste of time (from a mass market perspective), but I give Sony some credit for trying to make it mass market even if they've made the wrong business choice.

On topic: I don't see a direct competitor to Sony making sense.  There's finite resources to build "AAA" games and you've already got Sony and MS tying a ton of those up, plus Switch may be shifting the market towards hybrid consoles, similar to shift from PC to laptops and tablets.  It would be fun to see, but I think the outcome would be ultimately disinteresting doom for the new entrant.