Well, for Rest of the World and even parts of europe it is more than just branding: Sony has better representation. Nintendo and MS both have small hardware businesses. It is not much more than their consoles. To build up a headquarter in a smaller country is expensive, and brings not much profit. Sony not only sells consoles, but pretty much everything in electronics. Setting up a headquarter in a smaller country is profiting them more than only in console business. They can buold retailer-relations for their complete portfolio, not just consoles. This means for many smaller countries: you can buy a PS4 in the next electronics-retailer while you have to import a Switch or Xbox. So there is another advantage. That is also the reason many companies target first the US: that is a homogenous market that is big and targets customers with relatively high wealth.

I agree that Sony will it have easy to win against MS with PS5 with little effort, because most stuff is on their side: europe and rest of the world, brand image, first party games, good 3rd-party relations, japan. But they should not experiment too much. That might put them at risk.

It seems like a no brainer at the moment, because Switch is successful. But it might only be because of it hitting the right niche. I can see slow down Switch sales if a more powerful PS5 is released, that offers more WOW. At the moment Switch feels like offering nearly the same experience as home consoles.

A home and hybrid PS5 alongside each other, sharing library is full of problems. The hybrid-version might limit the home version: disk space, graphical prowess etc. Alone the format: a mobile device probably will not use optical media (which is very problematic on the go). So it is more likely, the hybrid will get own versions: smaller in size, smaller power preferences. But that is the Vita situation all over again, the Vita got the little brother version of home console games, and gamers did not like it.

Switch has the real advantage of not having a home console pendant to compare to.

well, first off: trying to use the ps4 architecture as it is on a portable is nigh impossible. lets get that out of the way. all the games will need to be a port no matter hoe they try. a PS5P mid gen at 2023 is a different matter entirely, though, as many said, just HAAVING a portable HW version can cause problems with disk space and stuff cause apparently only nintendo cares about advancing compression tech.
and while it is true that the switch looks strong because the ps4 is old, by the time ps5 rolls around ninty will have a switch + that may be powerful enough to brute force ps4 games so there is that, especially since the ps4 will be sticking around. I mean, look at how long ps3 stuck. it just got a big game dual realese this year in persona 5.

If it is, it'll be the first time in almost 20 years that the big three release hardware that I don't buy. It would have to do something pretty amazing to get my attention these days.

I think even when the great war for precious resources has begun and the US is an irradiated wasteland in the not so far future, people still gonna open PS V2 threads asking "ey guyz, whatduya think?"

To me the state of the Vita is almost perfect.
1) Lots of Indie titles
2) Tons of classic ps1/ps2 & psp titles
3) PS4 Remote play

In order for the ps Vita to make a huge leap in sales, Sony needs to make the decision to commit to at least 4 AAA titles per year.
1) New GTA Vita title
2) New Metal Gear Title for Vita only
3) New God Of War Vita title &
4) New Final Fantasy Vita title.

Compile this with the already slew of Indie titles, and the Vita will rise like the Sun in the sky.

Sometimes we all need a good laugh

They need a good handheld. The Psp was excellent Vita they dropped the ball.

Psp4k would be neat

Hopefully not, just leave the handholds to switch and 3DS.

If Sony had fought for the Vita I could see them wanting to try again with a PSP3 but since they gave up on the Vita pretty quickly I'm almost certain they won't bother with a successor.