Sony gives their big boys essentially unlimited money, time and space to work with major franchises for console games.

Handheld games get outsourced to any studio that will do it fast and cheap.

What you're essentially saying is, how do we know people want "Next Gen" consoles?

Demand for home consoles and dedicated portable gaming devices are completely different. The core of the games industry lies in the home console market and the future of the games industry lies on the ps4/720, who will undoubtably share most AAA titles (Unlike 3DS/Vita). In the immediate future we will just see cross gen games will superior ps4/720/PC versions, but going into 2015 it will likely be a case of; you want to play the next big thing in gaming? Well you're going to have to buy a new machine to do so.

I think you're missing the point about third parties.  When Capcom commit new franchises to the PS4's reveal event; it's a bit different to announcing they are porting two of their underperforming fighting games to Vita, far too late to make an impact.  Heck, even Square-Enix announcing "we are bringing Final Fantasy to PS4" is better than Vita had: "Here is Army Corps of Hell, a game which no-one asked for and we won't bother to advertise.  cy@" edit: but I'll hold judgement on that one, actually, since I forgot they announced Final Fantasy X HD for Vita as well.

And you're right in the sense that Vita getting God of War/Uncharted/Gran Turismo won't do anything like as much as those franchises will do on PS4.  Which is, again, another reason why PS4 isn't remotely in the same situation as Vita.  Sony have long-running, decent selling franchises associated with home consoles which they can and will bring to PS4.  They never established any handheld franchises during the PSP's life, so the best they can do for Vita is apply their home console franchises to the handheld market and hope that some of them do "alright".

It is a Sony console. All Sony consoles so far when they end up selling is above 73.2m, while handhelds find limited success and vita will probably not match the 73.2m.

Every time a new console is shown there is a giant list of developers or studios working on games.  Heck even times we get names of games.

Tell me what games for the PS4 have we seen that are 3rd party that are not on 360/ps3/wii U and are more than just speculation or baseless claim.

Only game I can think of is Witcher 3.   That is the only 3rd party game that I can think of that is only available for next gen systems that is "real"

Easy. Millions of people who want it.

well nothing,we will be having a battle of the loyalists this gen

if like everyone is declaring "the others" have moved on to pads and pods

personally consoles are how I watch/rent my movies and stuff so someone will be getting my dosh

You'll have to wait for E3 and beyond, it's not like everything is known about the PS4, it's still a long way to go 'til launch. For starters we won't even know the confirmed launch lineup until 1 month or so before launch, then we'll also know about "launch window" titles and any other future projects. Capcom already announced Deep Down (working title) during the unveiling of the PS4, isn't that a 3rd party title? yeah, I think it is, and that game won't be on the current gen you can bet on it as it was demonstrated running on Capcom's next-gen engine called "Panta Rhei". Square-Enix is also bound to announce a new Final Fantasy game soon, that's 3rd party as well. And it's only obvious every other game developer is already starting to work on next-gen projects, it's just a little too early to make reveals/spoil surprises/create hype for games that won't come out for another whole year.

Developers have to support SOMEBODY now.

Clearly it won't be Nintendo. PC market is too small.

Unless Microsoft finds a way to snag every developer exclusively, I don't see why we can't assume PS4 will have the same strong support that PS3 did.

WItcher 3, Dragon Age 3 (it has only been confirmed for next gen), Cyberpunk 2033 and Thief, bare in mind we haven't even reached E3 yet. But the truth is next gen exclusives may not be common place until 2015, but its a given that developers will eventually move from ps3/360 to ps4/720. The ps4 will have incredible 3rd part support garunteed.

Also some of the graphical advances we'll see in the ps4 versions these cross gen titles will be enough to sell the system, unlike the wii U which 3rd party ports are unable to distinguish themselfs from ps3/360 versions. Having seen watchdogs on ps4, I know that even If I don't pick up a next gen system day one, I will lay off picking watchdogs up until I have one to play it on.