Just because you wish something was true don't make it true.
Don't take my word for it, take the word of Nintendo's CEO at the time:
As if you don't waste enough of your time in a gamer's haze, here's Kotaku: a gamer's guide that goes beyond the press release. Gossip, cheats, criticism, design, nostalgia, prediction. Don't get a life just yet.
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"Our focus has been on how we could make those who had not been interested in TV games so far become interested. So we are not really thinking about competing with PLAYSTATION 3."
"Although we are not really thinking about winning against Sony, we do hope to make efforts so that in the end, the number of units sold by Nintendo surpasses that of Sony."
As you can see, they didn't even think about competing with PS3 and just wanted to sell more units by attracting new users to gaming. Like I've been saying all along. And them actually succeeding at selling more units was primarily made possible by Xbox 360 eating half of Sony's market share. It's like a greengrocer celebrating they sell more vegetables than the two competing butchers in the same street sold meat. Yeah, they all sell food but only two of these shops are actually competing directly.
If it flops it means Sony does cost-saving measures. Like layoffs, shutting studios down, maybe fewer exclusives or pivoting to multiplatform, at least PC. And in general what does it do for the brand and Sony? They'll look like clowns, it deals gigantic damage to the PS brand because it'd be their first "true" flopped home console, second handheld flop. That's why I've been saying fighting Nintendo ain't gonna be like fighting Xbox.
Except this is literally the opposite of what will happen. Last time they were faced with heightened competition they actually increased spending to protect/claw back market share. First party output and exclusives actually increased and took a more prominent role in the platform.
But don't worry, none of that will happen either way because a new console launch is no longer an existential project like it was before. The gaming industry has vastly changed. Most of the money Sony makes is coming from shit like Fortnite and GTA Online, stuff that still runs on PS4. And no one is going to look at it as a console war between Nintendo and PlayStation either. They offer vastly different products and are releasing on totally unrelated schedules.
Funny you say that only after Sony killed physical.
It matters to everyone it matters and you don't know the numbers and how many countries or how many millions we're talking about.
I know it matters a lot more in Europe and Asia than US, probably, but US still has enough that it matters there too.
I would've said the same shit a year ago as well. Unlike you I can see numbers and am not living in a fantasy world. It's actually you who keeps hammering on more and more about physical games now after Sony announced its end on PS, because a year ago that was a losing battle since most of the physical releases on Switch 2 are Game Key Cards.
Again, we have numbers. 78% of PS game sales this quarter were digital and 61% of Nintendo's. Digital is the majority of purchases on both platforms. Does it mean physical is not important, or that it's irrelevant like some bootlickers here like to claim? No. But you are a moron if you think it's going to cause people to run from PlayStation to Nintendo in large amounts. This would've only happened if Nintendo had a high-end console with third party release parity but they don't. And the real physical purists are not on board with GKCs either. And although Nintendo will support physical for the foreseeable future, it's not guaranteed to last forever.
That's probably lowballing it hard to be honest. Still, losing 10-15 million that would have bought a $400-500 console and then spend $800 is losing billions permanently just because Sony wants to please shareholders.
This is not lowballing it at all. Like I said, almost 80% of game sales are digital. Now obviously it doesn't mean 80% of users are digital only, but let's just assume 20% regularly buys physical games. Out of those maybe half are actually going to be pissed off enough to leave the platform, mostly to PC (not Nintendo) and the rest will just buy the games digitally moving forward. And if they pay the same price for these games as they were paying before, Sony will actually make more from every purchase so they won't be losing 10% but maybe 5%. They're not gonna "please shareholders" with lower revenue and profit.
It was the biggest things people hated pre-Sony killing physical. There was millions of people who bought PS5 because they expecrted it to be like PS4. Real exclusives, focus on AAA SP games and they never got it. Likewise with physical, I think a lot of people already suspected that Sony would kill physical by the time PS6 or PS7 was here but never anticipated physical dying on PS5.
Again dude, you are going to hyper niche communities online and think it represents what the average consumer thinks/does. Most people probably don't even know wtf a first party studio is, that shit like Concord (if they even heard of its existence) was made by Sony and that it cost them hundreds of millions to make. As long as they get their annual Call of Duty and the bi-annual Assassin's Creed or whatever they don't give a fuck.
First party sales on PlayStation have always been a tiny slice of the pie. The majority of people didn't buy PS4 for exclusives either, they bought it because it was cheaper and better than Xbox One. Europe and Japan never stopped picking PlayStation over Xbox, it was mostly the US that had to be realigned. Maybe there exclusives played slightly more of a role.
People have been talking shit about Sony PC ports this entire generation and yet it had zero impact on their earnings.