The point I was trying to make is that, regardless of what you play on or how you play, you should always hope the competition stays viable so the company you entrust your business to doesn't shit on your head because they're running a monopoly. Either way, you'd be best served if competition exists, so not caring if the competition ceases to exist is lacking foresight. As much as I love sony product quality, I know that they're upping the ante in gaming this gen only because of M$.

For example, notice how Internet Explorer has started getting so many improvements since all these other browsers started popping out left and right.

You'd probably bite those words. If sony leaves, there won't be any more NXE's, aggressive courtship of 3rd parties, netflixes, cheaper live costs or price cut after price cut from M$. I hope I don't have to explain why.

Sony is far more capable of sustaining losses in their gaming division even for multiple generations ( let's also take into consideration that the $3.5 billion figure is for this generation alone , the previous 2 Sony consoles were both succesful ) , Sony has various sources of revenue whilst Nintendo generates revenue mostly largley from gaming.

...And Microsoft would just give up against Nintendo why, exactly?

M$ has worked hard to appeal to the "hardcore" gamer since the inception of the xbox brand. You think they'll risk flipping the script and losing consumers next-gen when they finally caught their stride. Judging from M$'s press conferences, sony is their main competition in the gaming industry.