The way Sony has dropped their software prices this generation has changed considerably. They are not Nintendo, but they are certainly selling more games at higher prices, as shown in the Insomniac leak. 

Sony first party sales account for 15/20% of their overall game sales in any given year. That figure doesn't include PC ports which are included in the others category for financial reports. They also have their back catalog leading engagement metrics for their premium tier which generates billions in revenue. And where exactly are their first party profits being destroyed by GAAS? Something like MLB releases every year. Marvel Tokon looks to be the next big fighting game. Gran Turismo 7 is still charting. Even Destiny Rising is looking to be a promising venture for Sony in the mobile space with 5M+ registered players. 

Exclusives don't need to dominate play time to drive console sales. We've seen tentpole titles drive hardware sales for every platform. And even the article you cite is for one month where Sony had no releases. SpiderMan 2 for instance was in the top 10 most played for the PlayStation charts in NA from its release to the end of 2023. Even God of War Ragnarok hit the top 10 when its free DLC released back in Dec 2023. 

That's like saying everything is an EA box, Square-Enix box, Capcom box etc. Sounds ridiculous because it is.

As for the topic, Sony is definitely making decisions that follow in Microsoft's footsteps, although at a slower and more careful rate. It doesn't make sense though. For Microsoft it did because they suck as a console manufacturer and can't sell an adequate amount of hardware at an adequate price to make it all profitable. But Sony was and is in a position where they can clear the 100 million threshold for hardware sales which is a huge base for a closed ecosystem. Even when the hardware itself is rarely sold at a profit at any point in the lifecycle and even when the first party output has a dry spell, the large installed base generates sufficient profits with third party royalties from game sales and microtransactions as well as Sony's own subscription tiers. It's right there in the financial reports, after all.

The move towards third party publishing is a very risky one for Sony because it threatens their console business and therefore the profits it generates from it. The gains from third party publishing may very well be offset by shrinking console sales and a diminished ecosystem, so Sony's management is acting shortsighted. But they already did when they issued their GaaS strategy, so it's not shocking that they would make another mistake. They are once again chasing a higher risk, higher reward scheme while giving up on a winning formula that has lower theoretical profits but is much safer to accomplish and sustain.

I just looked it up. Not sure where I heard the 800 million number but apparently a lot of gaming news outlets were misreporting the dev costs of the game. Thanks for the correction. 

That's like saying everything is an EA box, Square-Enix box, Capcom box etc. Sounds ridiculous because it is.

As for the topic, Sony is definitely making decisions that follow in Microsoft's footsteps, although at a slower and more careful rate. It doesn't make sense though. For Microsoft it did because they suck as a console manufacturer and can't sell an adequate amount of hardware at an adequate price to make it all profitable. But Sony was and is in a position where they can clear the 100 million threshold for hardware sales which is a huge base for a closed ecosystem. Even when the hardware itself is rarely sold at a profit at any point in the lifecycle and even when the first party output has a dry spell, the large installed base generates sufficient profits with third party royalties from game sales and microtransactions as well as Sony's own subscription tiers. It's right there in the financial reports, after all.

The move towards third party publishing is a very risky one for Sony because it threatens their console business and therefore the profits it generates from it. The gains from third party publishing may very well be offset by shrinking console sales and a diminished ecosystem, so Sony's management is acting shortsighted. But they already did when they issued their GaaS strategy, so it's not shocking that they would make another mistake. They are once again chasing a higher risk, higher reward scheme while giving up on a winning formula that has lower theoretical profits but is much safer to accomplish and sustain.

Beyond the big names like Horizon or Spiderman, there's a lot of smaller Sony IP that I can see finding an audience on Switch 2, such as Gravity Rush 1/2, Concrete Genie, and Tearaway. These already run on PS4 so porting shouldn't be difficult, and the Nintendo crowd tends to like these sort of quirky adventures.

If XB sales keep declining into next gen, and PS6 can pick up a nice chunk of those, it would give SNY all the more reason to keep and grow their walled garden, while trying to expand it into others ecosystems at the same time.
Why give up a safe bet, especially when you've got little to no direct competition?

I think before going hard at porting some games to SW2, SNY might just take one more crack at a PS handheld (hybrid) and see how it goes. If it sells well enough, fantastic, but if it fails, then focus on porting to SW2,SW3,etc, going forward.