^This

Sony is the one poeple shold be more concerned about, their future is far from safe right now....

I am talking about the money people here, and how they treat industries and whether or not they put money into them.  If the videogame industry saw two of the three players in it leave, do you think they are going to continue to fund projects in that area?  Do you think those who advice corporations on what to do, who are in the financial industry, are going to greenlight anything related to the industry if it isn't seen one as growth?  Do you think there will be home market games being done, that have major costs associated with them?

Want to know where convergence is coming?  Look in the portable market.  It is now shaping up to be Droid vs iPhone.  That is where things are happening.  Beyond that, where exactly would a convergence box take place?  We have one convergence now... it is a called a PC.  Beyond that, in the videogame business, the most noted convergence business model was the 3DO.  Well, study the history of the 3DO to see why that business model didn't go over well, at all.  The business model that does work, outside of PCs, is the proprietary model that Apple uses.  It is very profitable with this business model.  It owns and controls everything there (distribution to the hardware), but does allow people to develop around it.  In computers, it still isn't as profitable as the PC market though.

Unless Nintendo's console happens to be HD, and features a number of hardcore titles that appeal to the young male demographic, there is concerns about the growth perspective.  This group may end up going back to PC gaming, or stick with portables (Apple catering to them). Back in the day, when Nintendo was the top dog, they did the sensoring of game like Mortal Kombat, which ticked this demographic off.

What I was saying is that if the industry is down to one console maker (doesn't matter who), the world becomes very aware of what is going on.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y122/viperempire/chartimg4.jpg

Courtesy of Naum's signature

This is a chart of each companies gaming division only. Sony still has alot of PS1 and PS2 royalties but is losing a lot of it, Nintendo isn't going anywhere, and Microsoft is in the red $9 Billion. Regardless I don't see anybody leaving anytime soon.

Well it was more or less Microsoft's poor licensing agreement. Microsoft licensed a custom GPU from Nvidia. Unlike Sony contracted Nvidia to do R&D of the RSX and cost reduction.

You can't go by legacy figures when you are determining a company's health. You have to look at the company as a whole, not one single division, and you have to figure out the goals of the companies, and the RELATIVE net loss they are taking.

I said what I've said, because I believe MS is a much healthier company than Sony, atm. They hold the rights to the perpetually successful windows OS, and can apparently afford to blow 10 billion dollars on destroying Playstation dominance on home consoles. However, it is unknown if Sony would be willining to take even a 10th of that loss. Sony is in the console gaming business to turn a profit, MS was initially in the console gaming business to disrupt competition to its Windows OS.

Thus, imo, Sony is more questionable than MS, since it has taken some serious losses this gen, while the Xbox brand is on an upswing in popularity, Playstation gaming has certainly declined drastically. I have a hard time believing Sony boardmembers would be willing to take the chance on a new console for many more years, especially if their other sectors are underperforming.

I do wonder what would happen if next generation, Sony released an underpowered console? Would the fans of the high end graphics on the PS3 this gen jump ship, or would they simply change their argument? It certainly didn't seem to matter to them when the PS2 had significantly less graphical power than that of the other consoles last generation.

No matter how you look at it, this generation has been a loss by Sony and a huge boon to Microsoft and Nintendo. We tend to get mixed up in the trees and forget the forest. No one in their right mind would have predicted how consoles sales this generation would have came out, 6 years ago, and saying Nintendo would have the first place console would have been laughable.

they wont give up no. though if sony do trunp the ps2 next gen i recon afetr 3 gens of not hving a massive seller then they might give up

All three brands are extremely secure.

- This is the first time Sony has 'failed' if you like in 4 attempts. A heavy financial loss, but with many other successes. It's also a big part of Sony's business activity - The aren't going anywhere.

- Microsoft don't really care about Xbox financials tbh. They are in the market to expand their presence and to keep Sony/Nintendo down. The Xbox division is such a small part of their business, it makes up their pocket change.

- Ninty...duh.

Well Microsoft will drop out if two things happen. The 360's market starts shrinking and 2.. the 360 starts failing

oh wait both of those are happening now oh well maybe google will make hardware next gen :P

1) MS won't leave... especially since they became profitable on games

2) Natal will only enable the 360 to align to other consoles launch date, not go beyond it.