There has been expressed concern about loss of backwards compatibility.  In response will come something like: "Well, you can always keep your PS3 and get the PS4".  Well the PS3 doesn't play PS2 games.  And if, say, you are into retro, and want to play older stuff, in order to be able to stay up to date, and want to play stuff, it would mean having a PS2, PS3 and PS4 all hooked up, just to play Playstation home console content.

Should this be necessary?  Or do you suggest people forget about PS2 stuff now at this point (get rid of your PS2 library), get multiple screens to thin things down around one, or put away one console of choice at a time, and then put another one away when not using it.

Which is the most optimal of these?  Of course, there is the scenario where you get rid of everything and then subscribe to Sony's cloud service offering and use streaming to play the past, which is set for the PS4 eventually.  Does that make sense, to keep paying money to play that which you already purchased?  Of course, there is the bandwidth issue concerns to, so that may not be viable for everyone. 

I still have my PS2 but I can count the times I used it after getting a PS3. Maybe 2 or 3 times. So my answer would be no, no need to have all 3 plugged because I hardly play old games at all. At best, keep the older consoles boxed and unbox once you have nostalgia feelings. Then box them again for a few more years.

I think backwards compatibility is overrated imho. I buy new consoles to play new games. The old games I'm most likely sick of/tired to play anyway. Gotta move on, just watch some youtube video and the will to play goes away. Also, many times I come back to an old game I realise how bad it is compared to new games - bad graphics, etc, or how badly it aged and put it aside pretty quickly...

Backwards compatibility is definitely overrated. It's just not a cost-effective option for console manufacturers, especially in today's economy. The whole reason the PS2 was b/c with PS1 was that it was both technically feasible and somewhat cost-effective to do so. And the reason the Wii was b/c with the GameCube was because.. well.. it was 2 GameCubes duct taped together to begin with so it wasn't rocket science.

You can say that for every console not a 360. Snes didn't pay NES games. N64 didn't play she's games. Saturn didn't play Genesis/Cd/32x games. Dreamcast never played Saturn games. Etc, etc. plus the ps4 won't be able to play PSX games cause it doesn't read CDs. It's the nature of gaming. Don't buy new consoles until you've finished your backlog. It's why I won't buy a PS4 for a while.

This.

PS3 ditched ps2 compatibility because it did not prove to be a major selling point and it was not worth the additional costs.

Yes but now online gaming is bigger. What about GTA 5 or COD?

Every PC is good enough to emulate PS2 Games with HD Settings if you want them to play.
PS3 games will be supported through GaiKai on PS4.
And 2 consoles don't take that much space anyway - PS4 is the only NextGen Console to have and PS3 can stand beside it,let the cables hooked up(HDMI and every HD TV has 3-4 of them) or at least buy a cable switcher thing and store the console somewhere > If you want to play PS3 just hook it up and after you are done put it back.Hooking up 2-3 cables that are there anyway doesn't take much time.

Don't see the problem.

I really like BC. Right now I switch between COD and Xenonlade often on my WiiU. That said, BC on PS4 would have been a major cost so they were wise to leave it out. And I think Sony is going to offer a great BC solution using cloud gaming. The only problem is you'll have to pay.

Dumb article ? Why do you think Sony purchased a streaming service? Because ps4 will eventually have all playstation games ready to purchase from the streaming service. Backwards consoles are very expensive so it is not smart to build them.

if backward compatability wasn't such an issue for someone to not get it in there ps3 before the ps4 came out why would they suddenly care so much?

if the problem is 3 systems hooked up. Get a ps3 that can play (and upscale) ps2 games. put a larger hard drive in it, transfer the date from the non backward compatable ps3, sell it, buy a ps4

once again only 2 systems hooked up :)