Oh yes my mistake but thats another thing tha Kontakt can do and they others can't and don't want to.
"don't want to" accurately captures the difference between Kontakt and the players.
What point are you trying to make, anyway? Yes, Kontakt can do many things that Play (and Spitfire's player and SINE and several others) don't do -- and don't attempt to do.
That's common knowledge. If you want a sampler or a synth, get Omnisphere or something. Or Kontakt.
Play works fine for what it does, a limited playback device (or 'rompler' as someone above put it).
Corporate Speculation, Anyone?
As far as "which company will survive," I see developers fleeing Kontakt because all the Kontakt libraries get pirated. Gigastudio (which you mentioned) used to be in every composer's computer and it's completely gone today, for exactly the same reason.
Moreover, the proprietary players in some cases offer features that Kontakt could not accommodate.
I am not predicting the demise of Native Instruments; I have plenty of their products that are excellent. That said, the signs are unsettling regarding Kontakt being the host every developer wants when EW, Spitfire, OT and others either have developed, or would like to develop, their own players. NI have had layoffs, but so have many companies.
Long term, from an outsider's perspective, I would think that NI would benefit from making progress on piracy (and more outputs, and fees, and encoding times -- a number of issues one hears about).
No doubt they are highly aware of all that and are working on it.