Dont forget nintendo though, they seem to be the good guys now but there not.

They want things like digital only as much a sony and microsoft.

That shit-eating grin. Looks like a political candidate in an election year. 

Xbox, mostly because they've been digging their way to the bottom for much longer than Sony, but in recent times Sony's sure done a lot to try and catch up. Nintendo isn't really great either, but by not doing anything completely egregious they look like saints by comparison at the moment.

Microsoft is trying to correct course, with all the layoffs being the result of the innertia from their previous bad decisions. Sony is still digging deeper and deeper, and does not look like it's going to stop anytime soon.

I’m surprised Sony is winning the poll. I’m certainly not a big fan of the PlayStation brand at the moment, but I don’t think it’s really close. Microsoft has been steadily running the Xbox brand into the ground for over a decade. Sony has made a lot of boneheaded decisions in a relatively short amount of time, and thus has made up ground vis-à-vis Microsoft, but it has a long way to go to hit the dysfunctional quagmire that Xbox inhabits in 2026.

Sony and Microsoft are on a completely different league than Nintendo ATM. Nintendo isn’t engaging in mass layoffs, canning projects over potential profitability, and are pumping out highly received games what feels like every other week. If you want me to include Nintendo, I’m happy to do so, but it’ll have like one vote at most lol. Not saying Nintendo is a “saint” nor are they perfect by any means, but they are heading in a much better direction than Sony and Microsoft and by a wide margin IMO.

Microsoft (Xbox) won this race when the 360 generation ended.

I think Nintendo immunizes themselves better to the economic pressures faced by other agencies by having profitable software on cheaper and more ubiquitous hardware.

What we probably see with player attitudes toward software pricing is that massive discounts and price drops are a typical thing. But theory may support that this is an extremely bad practice from a business standpoint, as it degrades the value expectation of the product. This is simple (Skinner style) behavioural psychology: that is, companies have trained their customers that they can purchase games cheaply if they but wait for them. This also breeds resentment when they want a game (us gamers are impulsive) and it is substantially higher than the prices a reserved mind-state gamer might find hunting for discounts on 6 month+ old games. However, Nintendo has almost separated itself into another realm for its customers, and it is not nearly as impacted by their bad discount practices. Behavioural psychology would predict that because Nintendo only engages in small discounts for games released in the last 10 years (maybe up to 20 of the game is a remaster), that the full price is not nearly in as much conflict with the impulsivity of the purchaser: a future possible Breath of the Wild 3 is 70 dollars today, it will be 70 five years from now, and maybe in 7 or 8 years it will be 63 dollars, or 50 with a hardware pack-in deal. So, you can feel like you’re getting a 70 dollar product rather than being taxed 300% for buying it a few months early.

A lot of the problem breaks down to standard fiscal mindset and practices and looking for that easy revenue bump at the expense of longterm profitability.

As a note, I’m not arguing for what customers want. I’m arguing for what the data shows is healthy from a business standpoint. The companies that engage in unhealthy practices see layoffs while Nintendo doesn’t.

Nintendo is a toy company that know they are making toys. MS and Sony don’t know that they are making toys. 

Microsoft: "We've been near rock bottom for a long time now."

Sony: "Hold my beer."