@RE4-Station Bro you're gonna have to break that up into paragraphs for me to really read it IJS. And
@Yurinka that's the thing, you are
ALWAYS talking from the corporate POV as if the rest of us don't know what their goals are. We do.
We just also remember to talk from our own POV too because this business is a two-way street. These companies won't get their money if they don't provide what customers want, and if enough customers bail, the shareholders will too.
So ironically, we are probably more important than the shareholders/investors in spaces like gaming but a lot of gamers are too immature to realize it.
No, the difference is that you think that your personal opinion is representative of what players like or want and that companies are wrong or will fail if not aligning with your personal preferences, or that companies should act following your personal tastes even if it goes against their interests.
And that they should take financially suicidal (in the long term) decisions just to appeal your personal preferences, that they won't take because doesn't make sense because as companies they have to grow their revenues and keep certain profitability.
Your personal preference (or mine) is not more important than the shareholders/investors. The market data that shows where and how all the players spend their time and money (plus related trends) is. Such market data shows the global personal preferences of all gamers and its evolution. Each player has a different opinion indivisually, which in many cases are conflicting.
But companies (and their shareholders/investors) try to appeal the maximum number of customers possible, so they care more about the market data that represents the totality of the players than personal opinions, specially the ones totally opposite to market data and trends.
Example: due to budgets increase, console market growth being very small and revenue from games sold being replaced by addons revenue, plus time spent on SP games being replaced by MP, Sony needs to expand to more platforms and to MP/GaaS chasing supersellers, and also grow in a top grossing genre they didn't dominate with first party: FPS. So acquisitions like Bungie, who produces hundreds of millions per year to them, are very logical.
You personally may hate shooters, MP, GaaS or Sony publishing games in non-PS platforms. And would personally prefer them to work only in their console, stay away from shooters, MP, and GaaS and acquire instead teams like Ember Labs. Even if way more people are going to enjoy Destiny and Marathon than the next Ember Lab game.
What I do is explain you why they take these decisions and why are good for them and better for the majority of players.
My personal opinion is that I don't care if they grow in areas where I'm not personally insterested (as can be the case of most shooters, GaaS, competitive MP, mobile or PC) as long as this gives them more money and users that help to continue making the type of games I like from them (GoW, Bloodborne, Uncharted, GoT, Days Gone, etc.), specially if as it is the case it's the only option they have to keep doing them.
As an example, they could fund the total whole budget of a high end AAA as could be Bloodborne 2, Death Stranding 2, Physint or Cory's new IP with the revenue Destiny 2 made in a year, or with the profit generated by PC ports of old games. I don't play Destiny 2 since its lauch and didn't buy any of the PC ports, but if their existance are needed to continue having the projects I like I'm perfectly ok with it, and I'm happy to see more players enjoying Sony games even if partially aren't the ones I prefer or if they play in other devices that aren't where I primarly play. And also Sony earning a lot of money that they can use on making more and bigger acquisitions.
If instead of expanding to these new areas they'd continue locked to non-GaaS SP games for PS, and would buy Ember Lab instead of Bungie and similar they would have to reduce the amont of big AAA games they do at the same time, would have to stop making games with top tier visuals, reduce their investement in new IP, and stop working in non-top selling AAAs titles because many of them don't sell enough to achieve the sales needed to make profitable a $300-400B+ current or next gen AAA game. They would have to limit to a few non-high end AAA games plus AA/AAA-ish games and as GaaS keep replacing game sales revenue maybe some day to stop making big games or to stop making games at all. And obviously would be earning way less money so they would afford less and smaller acquisitions.
I personally prefer the other scenario, a bigger Sony that can do whatever they want, covering more game types, game sizes, platforms and acquisitions.