I did it to play with my friends...

And there it is. See, you say that you do things out of principle, when in reality, you are basically Cody-level when it comes to so-called "principles". Your decisions were influenced by your desire to play with others, most of whom likely have zero idea about company policies, sales, or even your own principles. Those people greatly outnumbered you to the point where you went along with them.

I'm really curious about your use of the word principle here. I like playing with my friends, you could say it's my desire to do so. Oooooooo, how scandalous. I'm not sure what you've caught me in here. I like playing with my friends, and I'd like to have cross-play so I could play with more of my friends. I could post-rationalize my PS4 purchase any number of ways, it could be because of how No Man's Sky showed, it could be because PS4 was where Destiny was meant to be played, it could be because I loved my Vita, it's really hard to say. I hadn't considered that at the center of this was a kind of "principled" approach to picking which system I was going to play. Reflecting on it, I'm not happy that my PS4 is relegated to playing blu rays... The only good part of my PS+ expiring and me not renewing it is I save $50, I'm definitely bummed that I haven't been playing my PS4 more than I intended, regardless of the "principles" of the situation.

Not a bad thing, but it goes to show you how much numbers ultimately are the deciding factor sometimes, and as you further illustrate with the Battlefront example, money talks louder than people who disapprove of something.

You're out here saying we need to accept Sony's anti-consumer decision because it's just good business? Either you're a cigar smoking robber baron or a sony fanboy... I'm not sure. It's a bad decision, back when Microsoft made it and now while Sony is making it.

It's bad for us, the players who are aware of it, yes. I keep trying to illustrate that yeah, it'd be great to be able to enjoy it, but from an outside perspective, and objective angle, yes, this anti-consumer angle is good business for them, and the vast majority of their userbase is either completely fine with it, is entirely unaware of it, or simply doesn't care at all.

Look at landscaping businesses. They have certain measurements that they cut lawns at to make sure that they will be needed sooner rather than later. Most customers aren't aware of this, but they are completely satisfied with the service provided, so they hire them again and again.
The landscaping business makes way more profit by manipulating their users this way. Is it anti-consumer? You could argue that it is, but for the business, it maximizes profits, and the customers are happy.

Bad analogy? I dunno. Point is, I'm aware of it, I don't like it, but I understand it, and I know that from a logical standpoint, Sony has pretty much zero incentive to change the policy.
Xbox players who already weren't going to buy the console won't be buying it anyway, so why give them more reason not to? PS4 players who don't like it will likely stay on PS4 because of their friends already being on the console (we've already seen how that works, right?). And by simply looking at the sales figures, why would they try to fix what isn't broken?

Does a simple understanding of business, marketing, and strategy make me a cigar-chomping baron/fanboy? Apparently.

No understanding that doesn't make you a cigar-chomping baron/fanboy, snidely telling people to get over it while calling them fanboys does... My main issue with you is that you're a troll.

But name a single instance in history where a corporation decided to simply hand over its customer base to a competitor simply because "it's the right thing to do".

Corporations make all sorts of decisions they don't want to under pressure from their consumer base, Star Wars Battlefront 2 just being the most recent example. I don't think they'll make it because "it's the right thing to do", I think they'll make it because we keep on making noise about it.

Right, but that's not the question I asked. You're talking about pushback and the potential failure of a product from vocal outrage. That's a very real thing, yeah, and making noise does indeed do far more than simply "voting with your wallet"... But at this point, Sony isn't receiving pushback on something they want to impose, it's people complaining about the status quo, which means very little to the majority of the 70+ million customers who are fine with the product, and have already kept it from failing. It will take far, far, far more to get Sony to budge, and it will have to be an impending screwup that actually affects its existing userbase. Crossplay is such a minor and insignificant thing that I'm sure most people aren't even aware of it as a thing.

I mean, just think about how little people are ever aware by things when they aren't being directly affected by them. Apparently single-player games are disappearing. I didn't know about that, and you'd think I would. But it's apparently enough of a thing the the Game Awards had to repeatedly point it out with ads and everything, (and some Sony folks made a joke about it last night after listing off a bunch of their single-player exclusives). Is it really a thing? It seems to be, but I have heard pretty much nothing about it other than a passing mention once or twice from somewhere I can't even recall.

Now think about the millions of CoD players who are happy with the way things are. If you run up to them on the street telling them about how much they're being screwed over by a lack of crossplay, how many do you think would care? How many would drop what they're doing to join you all "I'm as mad as Hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

More than likely none.
But who knows, prove me wrong.

Yeah I felt relatively hopeless about it as a topic and thought a developer commenting on it in a very public way was an interesting boost, hence the thread.

Lets make it clear, Microsoft is not "the good guys", they're a company that made some really bad decisions driven by the hubris of their domination over the PS3. They're now suffering for it, and rightly so, and are trying to make back the ground with savvy decision making. Though, they are continually face planting, their whole approach to VR and AR is slapshod whereas the PSVR is, available, competent, affordable, and has GAMES. This thread is about 1 decision. If you want me to take a step back, I don't think Microsoft has done nearly enough to knock Sony off it's perch, just enough to rattle it a bit.

Right, so why should Sony give them a hand? Because "it's the right thing to do"?
They are both corporations that don't care about you. They are both corporations whose decisions are based pretty exclusively around profits. You gain nothing for having loyalty towards one or the other. You gain nothing by using your energy to rail against one in favor of another, simply because you don't approve of a business decision made by the one you don't favor. That's what I'm trying to get across.

I'm confused about what you actually want. Should I just not complain about Sony policies? Like really, what do you want? I just want to say "it would be better if cross play happens and I'm hopeful about more and more game developers raising the issue".

And again, brand loyalty has absolutely nothing to do with it. How is it so difficult to understand?

If you think that brand loyalty has nothing to do with the content you post on this forum, I am just jaw on the floor surprised.

Pretty much everything that I've said on this thread comes from an objective view of the way things work. And just because I like to poke at others in good fun over their gaming choices doesn't mean that I'm going out there standing in the street waving Anti-this, Pro-that signs like some of the cringe-worthy folks on this forum seem to be doing in their own not-so-subtle ways.
Heck, for all intensive porpoises, I should be one of those PCMR neckbeards now, right? I finally built a PC that can play games "IN GLAWRIUS 4K!" but you don't hear me making desperate-sounding posts about it (In fact, I'm still very much against 4K being a priority for publishers and devs over performance, even if that's not really an issue on PC at all).

Just saying...

The idea that your trolling is ambivalent and that you're able to hide behind the notion of objective based posting is almost delusional. Even if you truly are just trolling from an almost nihilistic perspective, that's just obnoxious. I know someone who was able to legally prove that they weren't racist to one of their employees because they proved that they were just awful to everyone. Every time I think about them, I'm glad that I never have to see them again.

Honestly, I think you're playing up the notion that we have fanboys posting here so you have more trolling fodder.