Sony and Microsoft don’t sweat Nintendo. At least, that’s the corporate line — they still might be coming for Nintendo’s ass.

Sony has shrugged off the notion that the PlayStation brand, with high-end graphics and adult-friendly play, could be considered in the same market as Nintendo’s Switch. Meanwhile, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer openly dreamt of porting games to Switch and intends to support the Switch 2 through his expansive (while consolidated) hopes for Xbox. Nintendo pioneer Shigeru Miyamoto is happy to “not get involved in what is sometimes called the ‘game war.’“ Companies to gamers: ✌️❤️

But for all the tunnel vision, everyone looks ready to rumble. The Switch 2’s specs inch Nintendo closer to offering the current-gen experience of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X in handheld form. PlayStation has responded with murmurs of its own handheld plans, while Xbox hopes to turn every device into an Xbox. But the counter to Nintendo isn’t all a hardware game. At this year’s Summer Game Fest, a slew of games played like legit competition to the first-party games that have remained under Nintendo’s lock and key.

No, you won’t play the next 3D Mario game on a PlayStation without hacking your console… but you may come close?

There has been no shortage of Nintendo clones over the last 40 years, but rarely does, say, a DreamWorks All-Star Kart Racing hit like the real Nintendo first-party equivalent. Case in point: Astro Bot, such a revelation in terms of letting a platformer team cook with the time and standards of a Nintendo game that it easily swept up Game of the Year awards throughout 2024. At........

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