It doesn't matter what the market is. It is a matter of self interest and generally once a business monopolizes a market they make moves that are less about creating value for the consumer and creating more profits for themselves. Read a history book or economics textbook. It's been recorded and observed for 100s of years how we act when we monopolize.
Modern companies like Google and Amazon who buck the trend in their own ways are only interpreting self interest in a different way. In the case of Amazon they don't care about structurally selling at a loss because by delivering on quality service they have grown rapidly as a company and see room to keep on growing as long as they can meet the demands of easy and fast deliveries and return claims.
Google sees that by avoiding abuse they can avoid unwanted regulations they didn't have to deal with before.
Again, sure, monopolies are bad but Sony can't truly monopolize the industry. Third parties drive sales, not first parties (as Nintendo has found out quite clearly with the Wii U). Hardware upgrades make everyone start from zero every 5-10 years.
The video game industry in it's current form is very protected from any kind of overt monopoly, especially from Sony who simply don't have the cash resources to out-spend competitors to defend themselves when anti-consumer actions make openings for competitors.
Also, as a company Sony is clearly trying to re-position into the Google/Amazon mold of service/media provider where at least the appearance of being pro-consumer is incredibly valuable. The clear goal there is to build up ample good will to position Playstation Now as the gaming alternative to Netflix and iTunes, which itself would be a market constantly exposed to outside competition if they get too heavy handed.
It's not absurd. It's business. When companies do well, they become complacent and greedy. When they fall on hard times, they become forward thinking and seemingly consumer friendly. It's the cycle of rich corporations. Compare Sony during the Playstation 1 & 2 cycles when they were unrivaled, to the Playstation 3, and then compare all of that to the Playstation 4 after they were humbled. Compare Nintendo's jump from the Wii/DS to the Wii U/3DS. Compare Microsoft during the Xbox's life cycle and the Xbox 360's lifecycle, and then compare that to now. You know how we shift back and forth between hating and loving Publishers like EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Capcom, etc.? This cycle is a big reason why.
I never shift back and forth on hating EA, Activision, and Ubisoft. I don't know why other's do.
Also, compare what jump for Nintendo? They're just as anti-consumer as they've always been. Goal #1 is to protect their little fiefdom of first party software offerings and belief that they're entitled to healthy profit margins on hardware unlike everyone else. They got lucky on the Wii and caught a blue ocean market. There was nothing pro-consumer about selling massively overpriced plastic trinket add ons and keeping all first party software at near full MSRP for the life of the platform.
Also, Microsoft has ALWAYS been anti-consumer. That was the big fear when they entered the market. They kept a low enough profile in that regard until people trusted them, then started an insidious slide into advertising and paywall bullshit just like everyone expected.
Companies are in business for money. End of story. They're not your friend, and regardless of what they say, they don't give two shits about the well being of the industry outside of their own walls. And if left unchecked, they will exploit and short cut all avenues possible. It's a fact of life.
Of course companies aren't your friend. Despite what Mitt Romney claims they aren't even people. But the fact is that Sony as a company has a long hill to climb before they even have the muscle to exploit or short cut any of their businesses. They're going to suck consumer dick until they're actually back in the black and truly healthy, if that ever even happens, because right now they're one always on Xbox One fiasco away from having to divide the company up into an insurance company, a media production company, and a small subsidiary of Toshiba that makes semiconductors.
The suggestion of Sony somehow being the big bad wolf when right now they're scraping and clawing to keep their heads above water quarter after quarter is what's really absurd here.
Having 80% of the market with the entire industry focusing ONLY on your product is nearly the same as having a monopoly.
Not when that market resets every 5-10 years and consumers are driven to your product entirely thanks to 3rd party products.
Just FYI, Time Warner Cable is not my only option, I can still get myself DSL or dial-up internet if I wanted to, but that would be fucking stupid, just like getting anything other than the PS4 when the entire industry rotating around it.
But Time Warner is your only serious option, as you yourself said getting DSL would be fucking stupid. The more important point here isn't that Time Warner Cable is your only option though, its that Time Warner is your only option now and well into the future. They own the politicians who hand out market control and therefore face no real threat to losing their iron grasp on you as a consumer. The PS4's success becomes all but worthless the second we talk about the PS5, as Sony has already so clearly proven for us with the PS3.
As for the PS3, MS only managed to get ahead because it dumped a hillside worth of money on Xbox and Xbox 360, Xbox was nothing but a pure loss for MS, and Xbox 360 had to be rushed out the door to beat PS3 and also had to make up for the losses of the OG Xbox, so it's pretty safe to say that if Sony didn't majorly fuck up the PS3's design, which made it incredibly hard to work with for the devs, which made a lot of the multiplats worse, and made it extremely expensive, MS might have dropped out market and we would again be stuck only with what Sony has to offer.
MS made money on the Xbox 360. More than Sony did on the PS3. So I wouldn't say they dumped a hillside of money into it. They did for the OG Xbox and it got them very little. It was when they re-focused their product line that suddenly it became popular and therefore made money.
Also, your point on how the PS3 could have pushed the 360 out of the market from day one if it had instead been far more pro-consumer and pro-developer directly proves my point. Sony had two dominant generations and lost almost all that momentum the minute they betrayed consumer trust. If they hadn't they never would have exploited their monopoly and likely would have been rewarded with a third consecutive generation on top, but that's the whole point here. The threat of a new generation every 5-10 years keeps 1st parties in line far more than a serious in-generation competitor ever has. We see this in how Sony being a viable alternative last generation didn't keep MS on their game and how Nintendo has only really reacted in even remotely pro-consumer ways when they themselves are struggling to penetrate the market at all, regardless of what the competition is doing.
So you just assume that like any company will just jump in to the market every 5-10 years?
How many serious competitors did we actually have in the entire history of gaming? SEGA, Nintento, Sony, MS, who else?
Video games are too big a business now for them to fall by the wayside. If streaming is viable in 5-10 years we'll have a ton of services companies waiting to jump for example. Even with the current market climate and three legitimate competitors we have an Amazon console coming in the near future. I'm sure Samsung and/or LG would gladly fill a vacuum from a hardware standpoint if one presented itself. This is a multi-billion dollar industry now, major tech companies from all sides of the industry will not let it rest in one company's hands for very long unopposed.
You only WANT believe that it's entirely off base!
No. It's arguing that apples and oranges are exactly the same because both grow on trees and end up in the produce isle at grocery stores. Their business models and the industry they're in have massively differentiating dynamics at play that makes them completely different scenarios.
I can also come up with 6 bullshit reasons why having TimeWarner as the only Internet provider in my area is a great thing, in fact I'm pretty sure that they had to come up with some bullshit reasoning for why they are great when they actually got the government subsidy in the first place, but that doesn't make them true, or void of any negative repercussions.
They didn't get a government subsidy. They pay your local government for exclusive rights. That's the only reason they've got their little fiefdom. Cold cash and sometimes political favors. There aren't any real merits, whereas a standardized and unified console industry has tangible benefits for all parties involved with the exception of the losing first parties. But they don't matter. First parties are the fodder upon which consumers and third parties should be feeding, in exchange being the dominant first party brings a win fall of cash. Its a high risk/high reward game and works best that way so that the rest of the industry and consumers see far less risk as they're the ones least able to cope with it.
