But no one is denying that Nintendo has always had the biggest impact on the video game market, hell they praticaly created it from scratch after the Video Game crash in 1983, and they'll be around for a long time with much more profit and much more knowledge on how the market shifts and moves along the years. 

The people who cannot see this, must really take a history lesson of what Nintendo means to the video game market.

But I also don't count out Sony, Microsoft or any other competitors that might appear on the future, because, just as Nintendo made their way into being the biggest video game company in the world, so can any other company do the same with time.

When I posted that comparison, I was strictly talking about the console market, because we all know that Nintendo has always dominated the handheld market. The only other competitor that has managed to take a slight bit of their market share from handhelds has been Sony with the PSP, but I see that Apple with the concept of the iPhone can also bring something new to that market, even though I think that Nintendo will be a step ahead of anyone who tries to enter that market.

Also, I'm not against your points of view, I share most of them, but I also think that many things can still change, as the future of the video game market is not set on stone (this generation has been a prime example of it, many people never thought that Nintendo could pull off such a reaction for the Wii and DS, yet those same people were proven wrong), so counting out Sony, even with their blunders, I think it's a bit premature to do.

The thing is with Sony and Microsoft is that being 2nd/3rd their positions aren't ensured and there is a very real possibility that the success of one will drive the other out of the market. When it comes to core market adoption and especially online the market itself dictates that one console encompass that entire market as competing standards for communications have done in the past. Since PSN and Xbox Live are not inter-operatable any great momentum for one can easily seal the fate of the other.

There aren't many players outside the console market which would have the balls and resources to foot a competing console. The only ones which come to mind are Apple. However as interlopers into an extremely competitive market they would have to take share from either Nintendo or Sony/Microsofts segments of the market and neither are easy tasks for a new-comer to do.

I wouldn't count anyone out for the next generation at this point, the only thing which is *almost* certain is that Nintendo will have a strong place in the market and a fuller slice of all the market segments they failed to capture this time around. If their going with a powerful Nvidia chipset for the next handheld is any indication it won't be a slouch in terms of overall performance.

I think it depends on the sales trend. If it goes on like now, with the PS3 / 360 gap decreasing by 200k a week, it could spell a quick return to the last place for MS. At 200k a week, the gap would be down to zero then favorable to PS3 in only 6 months (5 million gap).

I doubt the MS shareholders would allow another last place in video games after the Xbox 1 fiasco which lost billions. Gaming was never one of MS main businesses to begin with...

So IF Natal doesn't succeed and PS3 increases its domination in weekly sales, I think there's definitely a good chance that MS gives up on gaming. Remember the 360 is really successful in only one country in the world, the US (two actually, with the UK being the other for cultural reasons), partly for nationalistic reasons. In every other country, PS3 already has a bigger installed base while being more expensive and despite being released one year later. Hardly a success on a worldwide scale.

On the other hand, if Natal succeeds or MS somehow manages to avoid being last again (which I highly doubt according to current sales trend), then they won't give up on gaming and will take part in another console gen.

I personnally hope they won't leave as competition is good. I don't hope they succeed too much either, since I don't like their business model where you pay for everything including free things like peer 2 peer online gaming, where ads are everywhere and the hardware is unreliable... Worst than everything, they tend to close more studios than they open, and use their money to buy timed exclusives instead of helping game development like Sony does. We need more MS 1st party studios quickly.