could sony release PS4 in 2016?

[CapCharisma]

The problem with Sony releasing in 2016 is their console sales steadily dropping. Why buy a $250 console now when you can save another $150 and get a brand new console within a year or two.

Even if the price were to drop to $150 by 2015, it still wouldn't be a huge bump in sales. Sure they might be profitable but what's the point if they're only bringing in enough to keep their company afloat. And if someone waited until the PS3 dropped to $150 in price, you know they aren't going to be buying games brand new, they're going to be waiting until the games are cheap or buy them used. Sony gains no money from used game sales and neither do the developers. So the only games people will buy are the PS3 exclusive games, all 3rd party games will transition over to the Nextbox and the WiiU because they will slowly get more and more gimped on the PS3. This means Sony makes even less money.

You might think "at least they're making a profit" but games have to sell enough to cover their production value. Less sales = less profit from the games. If they spend more time on focusing on their games then the production values go up and they risk not making a profit off their games if they don't sell enough copies. On top of that Sony have to cover their operational, production and marketing costs so they need the extra profit.

If they manage to do well then they'd still need to be putting money into research and development for the PS4 in order to have a console for 2016. That's an extra 2-3 years of R&D, which is a sink hole for money. They don't get any return from it until after the console is released and even then they won't be profitable until they make as much money as they spent on R&D.

It will be hard to gain a profit if released in 2016 because the install base for the Nextbox and the WiiU will be around 35k, probably more. No one will want to buy a PS4 in comparison because they're friends are all on another console and not many people can afford to buy 2 consoles right away so less people are going to buy the PS4. They also have this catalogue of games built up for one console and will most likely continue to buy multi-plats on that console. 3rd parties will be hesitant to put their games on the system at launch and with such a small install base compared to the other consoles at the start, some games might not go to the PS4 at all.

If Sony were to forget about the 3rd parties and instead go for the mobile/ tablet market. They make some sort of console/ Vita hybrid. IMO it's a horrible idea because unless they turn the Vita into a smartphone they won't be able to tap into the market the way they'd like. The casual consumer isn't going to buy a dedicated gaming machine for games that are similar to the ones on their smartphone. We're also seeing a bit this gen with the Vita and the 3DS where most casuals don't want a portable gaming system because their smartphone is good enough. So all that would leave is the 1st party games and although I love Sony's 1st party games... they just don't sell as well as the other consoles exclusive games and can't survive without 3rd party support right now.