it would have been a very different landscape I think if those two had partnered. Who knows what the gaming world would look like. One of those "if I had a crystal ball" scenario to see what could have been.

Xbox operating costs are without a doubt eye wateringly high, way way way higher than Sony. GP is costing them an absolute fortune to operate.

That is a very solid operating profit. It's not net, obviously, but still a very healthy amount of cash you make after cost of debt and taxes (+ other expenses), and can invest into R&D and future endeavours. And give back to your shareholders or buy back shares.

Yup especially with the price of tech going up. They already have the PRO to hold them over.

Exactly this. Let Xbox wither on the vine for a couple more years and there will be nothing left.

I fully agree for 2 reasons:

1. Microsoft seems to be in a hurry to release the new Xbox, if they do at all... AMD speculates a 2027 release. This will hurt them in the long run, because:

2. Datacenters are buying up ALL the RAM, and some RAM manufacturers have stopped making RAM for consumer products entirely, while the other remaining ones are scared to ramp up their production capacity to make more RAM because they're worried this whole AI thing is a bubble that is about to pop, and they don't want to be caught holding the bag when it does pop. So, for now, it costs $300-400 for 32GB of DDR5. That's the MSRP for some entire consoles.

If Microsoft drops the new Xbox now, it's going to cost them a fortune. If Sony holds their cards a moment and lets PS5 cook for a while, as it's showing no signs whatsoever of slowing down in sales, then by the time PS6 is ready to drop, RAM prices should have stabilized, allowing Sony to devote much more of their budget towards making PS6's CPU and GPU more powerful, in addition to the tech itself maturing and the available CPU and GPU parts being much more powerful for the same price point than they would be if released today. So, we'd get a super powerful PS6 in say, 2029, that won't have to cost $700-800. They speculate, based on the current specs, that the new Xbox will cost north of $1,000, and that was before the RAM shortage came into the picture. It's definitely going to be even higher now that RAM costs so much.

MS will be shooting themselves in the foot (again) if they try to drop a new Xbox now, and Sony would be wise to capitalize on that mistake by holding their cards a while longer, raking in more of those PS5 profits, and then dropping a new console as soon as the hardware market stabilizes from this AI datacenter BS.

I think you are forgetting to mention the chip shortages for PS5.

No one wants the Switch 2 to do badly.

PS5 being less than 2m behind PS4 is not a big deal; PS5 had to deal with COVID and ongoing supply and pricing struggles that clearly still exist today. Sales of software are incredibly strong, and the size of the community is bigger than its ever been.

PS5 is well on pace to exceed its early (2021) estimates of 110m by end of life even if that's 2027. PS5 will hit 100m before November and then sell another 6-8M in November + December.

PS5 is doing great, and so is Switch 2, it's good for everyone that they succeed, pitting the two against each other is more damaging than anything related to the sales of the two consoles individually.