How do you think Sony will achieve that? They're in last place this gen and they're in the worst postition financially of the big 3, so they won't be able to give the PS4 the huge push (marketing, etc.) that Microsoft and (to a lessor extent) Nintendo can.

It's very ealry to tell anyway at the moment I more or less agree with Men-bear.pig prediction.
-Microsoft will likely dominate in United States, and will do very good in europe as well. In Japan they will still be irrilevant.
-Nintendo will more likely dominate in Japan, while also having a strong presence in the US. They'll have more troubles in europe, I guess 3rd place but still with a decent share.
-Sony may be 1st place in europe, but not by a large magin. They'll have a relevant market share in Japan, but a disappointing share in the US due to Microsoft strong competiton.

Brand strength Worldwide.
1st party quality/quantity only surpassed by Nintendo.
Continued top quality 3rd party support.
Capable, quality online gaming for free, with a quality paid service if required.
Continued growth in expanded markets
Not making the same mistakes twice.

May not be that far in front, but they will be in front. Nintendo went from 3rd to 1st after a terrible effort sales-wise with Gamecube. Why cant Sony go from 3rd to 1st following a console that will sell over 80 Million?

Why do you think Microsoft will dominate?

$$$. They've got the money to advertise more, get more exclusives and possibly undercut Sony and Ninty on price. Also, the X360 has the highest tie-ratio this gen (indicating higher levels of consumer satisfaction than the Wii and PS3) so consumers will remain with the Xbox brand and less satisfied Sony and Ninty consumers will switch and support the Xbox brand.

Oh yeah, and I wouldn't be so sure that Sony are gonna offer free online next gen...

Interesting.  So Sony finished last generation with (about) 63% market share and increased that amount by 14% during the generation that followed.

I wonder if we'll see a similar trend with PS3.  I suspect not with the numbers being much higher this time around.  But you never know!

I think they will have free online play. It just that there will be a bigger push for what ever the new Plus service will be.

But yes, both Microsoft and Nintendo have the money available to market there games, though in Nintendo case they like to use other means like the Nintendo Channel instead of the media, and I expect more of that. Sony has showen through out this generation that they are losing focus and the ability to advertise their games.  (Reducing their marketing staff and not hiring new staff) If this continues I expect they will be "last place" again this generation. Though I'm also expecting they may adapt some of Nintendo's marketing methods which were used to reduce advertising costs.

Meh, we will see. Any prediction made in this thread is honestly pointless in the long run because we have no idea what MS/Sony will be offering.

I think it'll be 70%, 25%, and 5%. I'm not sure who will have which percentage though.

Seriously though, history has shown us that preceeding generations aren't good indicators of succeeding generations. From what we know now, any arrangement of the Big 3 is possible.

Hmm. The $$$ didnt help them to dominate in over 10 Years of competition. Billions spent on advertising...

The tie-ratio point is quite silly too in reality. Look at the PS2 t-r (~1.5 Billion games on ~157M consoles) and how it helped PS3. You need quality and variety at launch. You need exclusives and maintained support. Its not tie-ratio that you should have pointed out. You should have said growing brand strength in the likes of America, UK and Australasia.

Considering your recent record on things, Ill choose not to even bother with your last point.

MS: 37%
Sony : 34%
Nintendo: 29%