Licenses are expensive to maintain. Just look at spiderman if you don't believe me. That youtuber is actually quite credible and it isn't the only source. Here is some more data to prove playstation games aren't doing as well as you think.

Will Sony copy Microsoft?
They already have.
Microsoft porting their old games to PC - Sony did the same.
Microsoft porting games day n date to PC - Sony now is doing that with some games.
Microsoft porting games to other consoles - Sony now is doing the same.

Playstation has become a 3rd party publisher since they started putting games on PC.

I'm not saying that you're wrong, I'm saying it doesn't matter because there isn't any other options. There's only 3 options. Xbox Switch 2 and PC. Xbox isn't strong enough to compete even if Sony put all it's games on it. Switch 2 has technical limitations that will limit the fps to only 30 when PS5 will have 60. PC is more expensive and complicated and isn't getting GTA 6 day one so I don't think everyone is going to give up their Playstations to get PC's. PC cases are also generally much bigger than consoles so it's inconvenient for many. 

What your saying is right, but none of it matters if there's no other option strong enough for the consumers to buy into instead. 

Sony is still bringing in billions from licensed products like MLB and SpiderMan. Being hard to maintain doesn't mean they aren't making bank. Sony literally has a Marvel fighter lined up next year despite all the high licensing fees. 

You can't be looking at limited data sets to make claims about PlayStation first party popularity. For instance, during God of War Ragnarok's launch quarter, Sony sold a total of 86.5M units of software, with first party accounting for 20.8M of those unit sales. Sony's actual releases account for less than 5% of overall game releases on their platform, but they still had their first party account for nearly 20%+ of software sales on the platform. It also led to November 2022 being the peak November for the PS5 (NPD), despite other holiday seasons having plenty of stock, and strong discounts. It goes to show that Ragnarok moved more consoles than stock availability and price cuts could in later years. However, I'm not going to cite this massive holiday period and pretend this is how PlayStation performs every quarter. And I'm not certainly going to do that for a slow sales period like April to June lol. 

And based on this: PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for July & a big thank you to players for 15 wonderful years – PlayStation.Blog

First party titles like Ghost of Tsushima, God of War Ragnarok, SpiderMan Miles Morales, and The Last of Us Part I, are some of the most played games for a two month period. You can't leave out the impact of Sony's back catalog driving PS+ tiers when discussing first party success either. That is not even getting into all the first party IP being used for custom plates/hardware/controllers.

Exactly , next thing Sony is gonna copy -

Microsoft kills their console sales - Sony in the process to do the same.

They don't need the walled garden because XB is much too weak at the moment, and has been for some time. The thing is, it's not impossible for MS to pull a 180 and seriously attempt another comeback. Yes, this is quite unlikely, I admit, but not impossible. That also doesn't take into consideration, any other company that decides to enter the market in the future. Who really saw MS jumping in before Sega died out? If SNY removed the walls, they open themselves up and add a bunch of risk. There's no need for that, as long as they can continue to expand outside the "main wall" or "main gate".

This was basically my initial thought process as well about the handheld device. I'd assume x86 based just like PS6 will be, so that it's directly compatible. Whether it's locked down to only PS Store game purchases, or will play PC games as well, who knows, but I'd guess this is the most likely route.

The other option I wonder about, is would SNY contract with Nvidia and make a very similar SW2 like device instead? Hardware that would be closely compatible with SW2 anyway. That way the PS handheld hybrid doesn't have to sell in massive numbers to remain viable. Even if it were to sell borderline poorly, you could justify keeping the product because the PS games are already basically ported for SW2 at that point, so also sell them on SW2, 3rd party SW2 games would be a piece of cake to port to the PS handheld, and the PS handheld would still allow direct sales from the PS Store and PS Plus Subs. In this case, worst case, if the PS handheld hybrid clearly failed, SNY could discontinue the hardware, then immediately move to just putting games on SW2 because it would be a simple shift.

Moneyhatting won't be anywhere as necessary if SNY has the home console market on lock. If PS is confident enough that they can start putting non GASS games on XB, then PS doesn't need to spend anywhere near as much to lock games down to their platform. Most of those games will naturally sell way better on PS6, so SNY would save a bunch of money that way.

Agreed, but that was my point.  If the hurdle is so low, why not jump over and really win?  MSFT will have to moneyhat or spend $$$$ on buying developers, etc etc etc.  In other words, the cost of exclusives for microsoft would be way too high.    

But we, agree so the two of us are just restating it all it would seem.

No they're not.

Being able to play Astro Bot or Horizon on Switch 2 or Xbox isn't going to stop people buying Playstations; nobody wants an Xbox anyway and Switch 2 is different enough that there's reasons for some to prefer PS5, like if they value graphics over portability.

You forgot massive reorganization, because I have a feeling Sony is going to do the same soon. But yes if PS6 is a 700 euro device and it will not have exclusives and paid online, pc wouldn't be more expensive anymore.