nordlead said:
no one.
Nintendo is currently dominating, and Sony/Microsoft are using loss leading tactics (that don't work). For anyone to conceivably legitimately enter the market they either need to beat Nintendo at their own game, or sell super advanced hardware at a loss while buying out 3rd parties. Which only a handful of companies are rich enough to pull that off.
Apple might venture more into portable gaming, but they will probably keep it like the iPhone, not a dedicated system like the DS.
@Impulsivity
To say that Microsoft hasn't brought any innovation to the table is stupid. Despite the fact that Microsoft brought "HD" gaming to the consoles first (not truly an innovation, but a step forward) they brought unified achievements (copied by Sony), unified online (copied by Sony), Halo (sure, you hate it, but it changed console FPS), added media center functionality (copied by Sony), better software development tools with closer PC/XBox for easier development, and finally Natal which is truly a innovation, unlike Sony's Move which is an improvement of the Wii Remote (with WM+).
and no, combining X360 and PS3 isn't how it would work, as a lot of them probably wouldn't even bother with a PS3, or already own one. You can draw your own conclusions out of this - http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_090914.html - but it doesn't really support that eliminating one of the consoles would mean that they would all jump to the other.
As for your things to make it better. Blu-Ray doesn't make gaming better. There have only been a handful of games that are actually better on the PS3 because of Blu-Ray. 3D isn't hear yet, nor will it matter for 95% of gamers this generation. Not everyone even has HDTV's yet. built in wireless is "inferior" nor is it necessary, and as for "cutting edge games" that is subjective. Sony hasn't really created that many cutting edge games either (MAG is the most cutting edge they've done).
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A) the 360 did not bring HD to the table, the Gamecube actually had a 480P HD output well before either of the competitors. They took it out eventually since it was too soon, but the 360 most certainly did not blaze a trail there. Also being the first out with slightly better graphics is not really an innovation but, like you said, a step forward, if the PS3 was released at the same time it almost certainly would have had the same graphics more or less
B) the achievements were indeed added to the 360, they had existed in games to that point (101% completion percentage in donkey kong, trophies in Smash Bros, Ratchet and Clank Skill points etc) but were not unified. So they do have that one.
C) The PS2 was online pretty quickly after its release too, maybe you mean a network making it easier to find people? Either way that clearly came from the PC which has had those things for decades. I used to play online games as far back as 1991 or 92 on the PC (though sometimes I needed to have people physically come over to play Doom or whatever, hence LAN party). Xbox Live had a few features first but PSN had the greatest innovation of all, having all the core features of Live and more plus being free, just like old school PC online has ALWAYS been.
D) the PS3 has much greater functionality then the 360 as far as a media center, its not even close. It has Blu Ray, it can stream all kinds of media from all kinds of devices (including Divx pretty early on), it can browse the web and stream Hulu among other things that way, it has an interchangeable hard drive so you can store 500+GBs of stuff if you so desire and it is open using UPNP standards in a way that the 360 most certainly is not. Stuff the 360 is just now getting like facebook, USB hard drives, Twitter etc the PS3 has had for years. All the 360 had extra was Netflix but the PS3 has that now too (in addition to Home and a lot of other things the 360 doesn't have).
E) I don't know what you mean about easier development. You might mean easier if you only want to use the 360, but given that the PS3, Wii, Mac, iphone, ipad, DS, PSP and just about everything else use Open GL and only Windows and the 360 use Direct X it's pretty clear that having this parallel proprietary path for 360 development isn't particularly a boon. Everyone would be better served if MS just got on the boat with Open GL and Open CL like everyone else.
Their "easier" development is also limiting by not letting you integrate as closely with the processor, which is one of the reasons I dislike the 360, it puts a cap on multiplat games since devs can't use the full PS3 7 core potential on display in Uncharted 2, God of War 3 etc. It is easier because there is less freedom.
F) The Natal is a boondogle, I can't see much different between it and the eyetoy and similar gimmicks. Sure it can track my body movements but what do I do with that? I don't know how to do a flying dragon kick from a stand still to win Mortal Kombat, I don't want to climb around my living room pretending I'm Snake and I sure don't want to do the gun finger thing to play modern warfare. Motion is fine as part of a larger controller ecosystem but by itself it's pretty much just good for mini games ala eyetoy (which is to say its not very good at all). We already know the Wiimote works, I'd rather just have a better version of that.
G) Maybe to you the graphics Blu Ray makes possible (see Uncharted 2, God of War 3) don't matter, forwards compatible 3D doesn't matter, lossless audio doesn't matter and all the other things that make HD games HD don't matter, but I would bet for a rapidly increasing number of people it does. I mean who doesn't have a few hundred bucks for a decent 1080p TV by now? (a 1080p set which only PS3 games support natively while the 360 has to upscale due to capacity limitations of DVDs)
It isn't like when I got one where a flatscreen 1080p set that was 50 inches was a 3k investment at the PS3's launch, it's maybe 1/3rd that today. Also if wireless isn't needed what do you do? Run ethernet across your rooms?
You can't talk up internet features then pretend including the main means of connecting to the internet EVERY device from the last 5 years uses doesn't matter. The Wii, PS3, ipod, PSP, DS, iphone and every laptop (and most desktops) include built in wifi, or at worst its a 30 dollar upgrade. Why in the world is it a 100 dollar add on "feature" for the 360 still? At best its insanely cheap of them to nickel and dime you on Wifi in 2010, I mean really.
H) Last thing, pretty much every game that's gotten Buzz for Movie Quality everything (Uncharted 2), huge multiplayer that has 10x more players then anything on the 360 (MAG), innovative movie like gameplay (Heavy Rain), level customization (Little Big Planet) Singing and music video integration (Singstar), top of the line graphics (God of War 3) or anything else major has been a PS3 game either first or exclusively. The 360 big hits are pretty much either multiplat or Space Marine games (Halo was not that innovative if you'd ever played Bungee's earlier game Marathon, it was more or less the same as that classic 90s mac game, but with better graphics).
The last different game I've played on the 360 was Viva Pinata 3 or so years ago now. Anything else that was even remotely innovative made its way to other platforms too (PC, Mac, PS3, sometimes even Wii).
