A generation with four successful competitors?

[Joelcool7]

Alright now I've been around since the NES days and since the NES days I can't recall a single video game console generation where there has been four successful competitors in the video games industry. Unless you count computers!

I mean every time a fourth competitor enters one console manufacturer gets whacked. You have the very fist company to go since I've been around Atari who was officially killed when Sony entered the console wars, you have 3DO which died upon arrival mid generation. You've got DreamCast which died right as Microsoft entered the industry.

So the question you gotta ask yourself is, is their ever going to be room for a fourth successful competitor? Has their ever been four successful competitors?

So if one of these three gets killed who do you think will be the next company to fill the void? Other competitors like TheInfiniumPhantom and the Epextreme never even made it to store shelves being killed off by the competition before even making it to the shelves.

Could somebody new enter the industry and succesfully compete as a fourth competitor or kill off one of the current ones. I mean all three current competitors are very financially entrentched for a battle to the bitter end so could somebody even feasably kill one of them off?