The PS brand went from 20+M to around 10M due to Nintendo domination in Japan. Due to this dominance, Sony cannot regain this 10M back. This is Nintendo's work. I have shown the numbers and can show more I did the study. What numbers do you want to see?

Them selling well side by side doesn't mean they don't eat out each others' marketshare or compete for customer $$. That's what I'm clarifying to you. So long as you make these two concepts mutually exclusive, you can't understand the obvious.

Of course, the level to which the audiences intersect varies from manufacturer. Like you guys saw, in the West the PS and XB audiences intersect much more fully than PS/XB to Switch. In Japan, Switch and PS intersect much more hence the higher cannibalism.

As yo33331 mentioned, if Nintendo started matching more aggressively the offering of PS/XB, it would lead to more intersect and more cannibalism. However, them seeking each others' audience right now would be over-extension since the manufacturers right now need to consolidate and focus on their strengths in order to succeed, and that's what I see them doing. For example Sony exited handheld and stopped aiming to win Japan, as they were losing amd needed to focus on the West in order to win where it counted most for them (the fight for the Western $$). In the West, a good portion of low to mid-income families may choose only one console for the family and that's where right now the 3 main players battle directly. Nintendo is doing good though all things consideree (WiiU failure, Wii image issues as a non-gamer machine, etc.).

What will be interesting to watch is how one of the manufacturers, once consolidated, will seek the marketshare of the others, once ready, leading to a greater clash of the titans. However MS seems to be making game-changing moves to alter the ability of other manufacturers to gain marketshare, by absorbing key Western IPs and hoarding them into a cloud service, which could eventually be supplied to a competitor like Nintendo, who in turn will want to built such a library in-house. This will get very interesting over the next few gens. If I were Nintendo, I'd be trying to create my own line of software in order to make my own COD or Assassin's creed in-house (like they did with Xenoblade Chronicles in substitute for big JRPGs like FF). Honestly, with all the money they have, how hard can it be over time? Still it will be interesting how things pan out after the consolidation phase we are in is over.

Them selling well side by side doesn't mean they don't eat out each others' marketshare or compete for customer $$. That's what I'm clarifying to you. So long as you make these two concepts mutually exclusive, you can't understand the obvious.

Again though, that drop happened long before the Switch, in one country. On a global scale, PS4's sales didn't plummet in parallel with the arrival and rise of the Switch, nor did PS4's dominance at the time of Switch's release stop it selling strongly out of the gate.

The two sold well side by side; to go back to my original point, there's nothing to suggest PS5 and Switch can't do the same, and in fact they are doing just that right now.

The problem with this logic is if you try applying it to the PS3 and XBox360.  Your logic is saying that they didn't compete.  They both sold very similarly.  Each took a few years to really get going and then both had their sales peak during the latter years and had good sales for a long time.  The release of the PS3 didn't instantly make the XBox360 go down.  Your logic is saying that they didn't compete.

However, if you compare lifetime sales of PS2+XBox and PS3+XBox360, then they are pretty similar numbers with the XBox getting a much larger % share than the OG XBox got.  It is clear PS3 and XBox360 are competing if you compare lifetime sales but it doesn't look that way if you break things down week by week or even year by year.  That's how console competition works.  You fully see the competition once you get near the lifetime sales of each system, but it's not so obvious on a year by year basis.

Sony left the handheld market with Vita because of bad sales numbers. It wasn't really what Sony decided to do, it was what the market decided - Sony didn't leave Japan, Japan left Sony. 

Wii U was an attempt from Nintendo to cannibalise the PS3/360 market. Had it worked, Nintendo would have had a good head start to next generation, but it did not - even Vita was more successful than Wii U. 

The thing is, that Nintendo does not see a point in creating yet another system for multiplatform 3rd party games. Not only it makes the system more expensive, but all the software on it would be more expensive to develop. I kind of agree that Switch (and it's successor) could have more games we see on PS4/PS5, but I don't think this is what Nintendo should focus on. The third parties will come when they need to make more money. Either they port existing games or create wholly new ones. 

@curl. The PS4 lost a significant market to the 3DS/switch, leading to lifetime sales 10M lower than what their main consoles are able to do, and full loss of potential 70M in handheld. They are direct competitors.

Why would they need to cripple PS5 sales? They fight for marketshare it does not mean they need to cripple each other. The crippling numbers I've been pulling out to you is to show you how clearly they CAN eat into each others markets, it does not mean that it will always be clear-cut or that they can't coexist. But they are waging long-term battles. Make no mistake, Nintendo's retaking of Japan is 3 gens in the making, and nobody knows what new moves are around the corner. Nintendo is in a strong position, they may seek to move forward and take more ground. Only Nintendo's management knows what their next loves are, but don't think they aren't interested in gaining marketshare. After all, they want a healthy bottom-line, and increased marketshare increases the bottom line, a decrease in marketshare decreases the bottom line, except in the rare cases when everyone grows as happened only in the wii generation. Otherwise these titans are fighting for dollars as much as they want you to think otherwise.

It's not because I disagree with liquid laser that I need agree with you. You're both wrong. The PS5 will sell around 7-9M in japan, around 100-105M elsewhere leading to 107-114M total, similar to the PS4 or a bit below, with a weaker japan (notice they just unfuriated the japanese with a price hike and they are not happy at all). This is due to lost opportunity that can't be regained in Japan, and due to strong competition from both Nintendo and MS worldwide leading Sony unable to reach PS4+PSP type total of 185M (or if you like 158M of PS2 era).

In total, due to competition from both Nintendo and MS, Sony is losing an opportunity of around 50-80M, plus the software that goes with it. How much is MS' we don't know, but for certain at lesdt 30M of that is due to Nintendo in Japan (20M PSP +10M PS2 to PS4 decrease).