1) Will MS Sony and Nintendo make another console and will someone new?

[xman]

Arkk said:

Resident_Hazard said:

superchunk said:
All three are already R&D-ing their next consoles.

I doubt anyone new will join. Apple is trying with their iPhone, but no consoles.

 

 

That's not necessarily true. Patents surfaced of a Wii-like interface for some kind of hardware being designed by Apple a month or two ago as revealed from IGN.  And Apple was in the industry once before (albeit, unsuccessfully) with the Apple-Bandai Pippin during the 32/64-bit (Fifth) Generation. 

We're at the slimmest point ever in console gaming--we have only three competing machines from only three competing commpanies.  Go back a few years and it was a much more crowded realm with a lot more choices.  The 2nd and 5th generations were the most crowded.

2nd:  Atari 2600, 5200, ColecoVision, Vectrex, Intellivision, Fairchild Channel F, Odyssey II, etc.
5th:  N64, Saturn, Playstation, Jaguar, 3DO, CD-i, Pippin, and the follow-up to the TurboGrafx-16/CD (it's name escapes me at the moment--it was the first designed like a tower), ill-fated Nuon, etc.

Frankly, I wouldn't mind seeing another entrant or two.  Apple seems very likely to throw jump in, although I don't think that being able to play games on the iPhone will threaten either the PSP or DS in any way.  After all, the installed userbase of iPhones is only about a million or so which is next to nothing compared to the PSP 30+ million or the DS as it approaches 80 million.  EA is a company that I've theorized may try entering the fray by the next generation based on the way they gobble up other studios and their belief that the industry should be streamlined to run on just one dedicated console.  I'd much prefer Apple to come in over EA.

 

I agree that we are in the slimmest time for consoles, but you have to think, is there a reason for that? Looking at the list you compiled from those two previous generations, the answer to my question is yes. Companies have learned that getting in the console industry is a lot harder than it looked to Panasonic, Phillips, Apple-Bandai, Hudson, and anyone who wasn't named Atari in the 2nd generation. They all lost boat loads of money, respect, sometimes there entire businesses due to trying to jump on in to the party.

That is why we don't have 7 systems this generation. Because 75% of people that try to get in, get out in a hurry and people have become savy to this fact.

 

This round of consoles everything cost so much more.