The differences in strategies between Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are absolutely wild, but I think it also really speaks to their respective DNA as a consumer electronics company, a software company, and a toy company respectively. Superficially they all look like videogame console companies, but they're very different companies that just so happen to use videogames as the means to execute their strategy.

Sony seems to presently be on a path that's somewhat dictated by their traditional console concepts of moving data around as fast as possible given consumer budgets, and using that as an enabler of greater and greater spectacle for consumers by a large and well rounded network of development houses. This has worked really well for them for all generations of their gaming strategy.

Microsoft is focused on developer experience and using that to drive consumer demand, just doing it in games. This has worked pretty well for them in the West, but has failed abysmally in some parts of the world where the relationship between software developer and consumer isn't as strong. They seem to be working overtime trying to confuse consumers, kill viable IP, and get themselves out of the market in the next generation or two.

Nintendo is focused on the best way to create unique experiences of "play" for the consumer where their own IP is the vanguard for the system, and every other company sits in "other play experiences you can also have...if you want". This will work for them on some generations, then completely bomb on others. But it has kept them viable as the smallest of the three companies for decades, and also near the top of the sales list in a few categories most generations. They also have absolutely impeccable Intellectual Property that they have maintained better than Disney, the former gold standard IP protection company.

To bring this point home, for years there was hubub in the industry that Nintendo would bring out some kind of Switch Pro with 4k output and faster guts, rumors swirled around and around until Nintendo finally brought out? The Switch Light. The opposite of that. Nintendo was answering the question "how do we get more people into our world of play?" And a cheaper, less capable, more rugged, system was their answer.

But for Sony, their DNA is "move electronics". So whenever they feel they can, they'll come out with a new revision or update or accessory to hardware they are already pushing. When Sony was pushing new VR headsets, Nintendo put our a toy kit made of cardboard. When Sony was pushing a handheld streaming accessory, Nintendo's system simply undocked. The PS5, which was at the bleeding edge of state of the art consumer electronics is around 4 years old. The Switch is about to be 8 and was basically a cheap tablet with clip on controllers when it was released.

This isn't for the idealized customer the Nintendo is after. This is for people who want the absolute best hooked into their home multimedia system to show it off, which Sony hopes is also a Sony TV, Receiver, Speaker set, and so on.

What Sony may run the risk for is becoming what NEC became. Lots of variations and incremental updates to their system, with different packaging, until they basically just suffocated themselves out of the running -- pursuing a strategy of pushing custom NEC electronics instead of going to where the industry was going. It could happen.