"Today, PlayStation revealed that its PS5 has sold 40 million units. Microsoft doesn’t share hardware numbers typically, but court documents, math, and slides from an ID@Xbox in Brazil seem to suggest the Xbox Series X|S line-up is around 20-23 million units sold globally. That essentially puts the PS5 at a 2:1 advantage against Xbox, but perhaps the split is even worse than that beneath the surface. "
You’re right. Hardware is close enough to parity to be irrelevant. The competition in the 2-party console market (Nintendo doesn’t count, they’re in a different league) is in exclusive titles. It’s why the MS-Activision merger had so much focus on Call of Duty and such: MS will take all their new titles exclusive as soon as they can and that’s what drives sales. People choose consoles based on what games they want to play, or what consoles the friends they play with use if there are cross-platform titles.
XBox and Playstation: Hyper-realism! Low latency, higher frame rate! Games for serious adult gamers! FPS and Hack&Slash are the best genres ever!
Nintendo: We make fun games for fun people. Give us your money.
Nintendo: “Also, we’ll sue you for pirating games we don’t sell anymore, because we might want to rent them to you in perpetuity instead.”
Exactly. Nintendo has targeted game styles that are largely being shared by smaller developers. AAA devs pretty much have to push visual boundaries in order to sell consoles while Nintendo focuses on whatever new major feature their newest console has (Wii: motion, WiiU: semi-handheld, Switch: hybrid handheld). Nintendo hasn’t tried to compete with the big consoles at least since Gamecube. And their focus on few, high-quality titles for first party series means they have nearly guaranteed success every console generation (actual guaranteed success with pokemon).