According to a former PlayStation executive, Sony did not consider Nintendo to be a true competitor in markets outside of Japan, with the company putting its focus squarely on Xbox instead.
Shuhei Yoshida, who worked at PlayStation for nearly 30 years before stepping down this year, said on the Kit & Krysta podcast that PlayStation’s „perception of their competition is always Xbox. They see Microsoft being the competition because Xbox is very similar in terms of performance hardware.“
Microsoft makes a „high-end“ console with „mature“ games like Sony does, Yoshida says, and Nintendo was seen as „very, very different“ by Sony.