By 2016, both PS4 and Xbox One should both hit mass market price. Around $250.

By 2016, Playstation Now will be streaming PS4 titles as well and it should be released on tablets by then too.

By 2016, PS4/XB1 will own the gaming market so much that it will be VERY hard for a 3rd competitor to make an impact. VERY HARD. Nintendo is traditionally weak in the console space and their portable market is declining with each passing year due to smartphones.

So the odds of a console/portable hybrid being successful, yet alone being a threat to PS4/XB1 is unlikely in an age of 100million or so PS4/XB1 consoles sold, affordable Android tablets and of course much more desirable iPad Air/Mini/Mega/whatever.

Man, that's really a lot of assumptions based only on a sentence. The only fact you can safely assume from a sentence like that is that they will do another home console, which is pretty obvious anyway. The Wii U has 2 years now, of course their next console is on RD. PS4 started around 2008. These things take time.

If this is a normal 5 years gen, I can see their console in 2018/19. If it's like the previous, I see it on 2020/2021. I doubt they will be the first to launch again. They usually like to be last on launch and do their moves carefully and their first console to launch early (not including NES, since the market was dead and there was no competition) was a complete disaster. They will be more careful next gen.

@Padib:
Do you know, how an API works and how many 'unified API's' there are?

Still does not mean that you just take ARM Code and just put it on the x86 CPU and it starts runnign perfectly fine.

Comparing a x86 device and an ARM device wich might be totally different actually to two ARM devices that are pretty much the same is a bit of, well, dumb.

Right know Nintendos problem is, that Wii U and 3DS have totally different API's, actually totally different OS's and the hardware really has nothing in common. So if someone starts developing a game for 3DS and Wii U, every version has to be build from scratch up.
It is likely much easier to port from 360 or PC to Wii U.

That Nintendo approach is more like Microsofts trial of unifying their OS's for Xbox, PC and Windows Phone. Until recently totally different systems, but at least the API had much more in common than right now with Nintis systems.

Joke Thread?

Of course they will lol and both will win, they had the courage in 2014 and won by a lot why would they be scared now lol

Dat title thou, such flamebait.

Sony won. MS got desperate...

There's no real difference between an app and a 'Windows program' or any other program except the name. file management on the other hand is one thing, that is just much less important on a handheld, tablet or console as if you are handling with thousands of files of different types.
Having your single app for example does not mean it is really one file. You just see the single file. More like only seeing a zip-file and not all those nice little subfiles.

The actual game changer was how tablets, smartphones and all those not so smart devices have evolved within the last decade. That was a lot different some years ago.
Basic problem is the same. Microsoft needs an easier to handle, unified eco system. One that by the way might look totally different on a Lumia than on a pc.
But that software environment has to make it easier for devs of any kind.
At the same time that will reduce needed ressources, even for Microsoft themselves.

Nintendo basically needs the same. But that will just make things easier. It's not as much unified as some might think.

Then there is this wizardry 'put your game on a more powerful device and...'
It will run in a higher resolution and with more fps, but that is it. Except you put new textures, meshes... on it. Stuff like parallax occlusion mapping is just not done by itself. Tesselation is not done by itself. Even if some might think.

Basic job for OS stuff: Check, what iOS actually is, where it derrived from and why that makes live easier to some degree for Apple devs but why there still are lots of differences.

Then you actually might understand.

Even if Nintendo do release a console in 2016 (which I believe is doubtful and too early) the chances are it will only be on a par with the PS4 and Xbox One anyway in terms of power (at best!) By which time both the consoles out now you'd think will have had hefty price cuts so unless Nintendo comes in at a ridiculously cheap price, they still wont really affect anything.

2017