Microsoft for sure. They just wanted to stop Sony from conquering the living room and they're not passionate about gaming like Sony are.

Sony is buying and creating developers for long term, for decades into the future, while MS is investing in motion controls and third party timed exclusives which is a short term strategy.

Also, historically Microsoft from his investors has demands to achieve almost unrealistic profit margins of 20-30% that just aren't possible in the gaming business long term. While Sony's shareholders accept a more realistic 0-5% profit margin.

I sincerely hope I am wrong though.

As it stands now Microsoft and Nintendo are both financially solid companies, Sony on the other hand is in debt up to there necks and if things continue the way they have Sony as we know it may cease to exist.

Certainly, Nintendo isn't going to anywhere, nintendo will stay in this industry, I would say Sony need to change their strategy, otherwise, it will leave the industry in red numbers, and by the way, Apple could be considering entering in the game

I agree with your above underlined statements, but they actually work against your main point as much as they help it.

I get what your saying:  Citing Microsoft's and Sony's numerous resources, you believe they could hold out longer if they had to.  But the very fact that Microsoft and Sony do have other lines of business to fall back on and Nintendo doesn't is the very reason why Nintendo would logically be that last one of the three to leave the game industry... that's their entire business model.

Of course, they could screw up and be forced out ala Sega (from console making at least), but if the question was, "What company would be in the most trouble if their gaming division went south", then it would make sense to say Nintendo.

Not to mention the very reason Sonys in so much trouble is their none gaming divisions are hemorrhaging money.

Well, Sony, because as a whole company they always lose a lot of money, atleast recently (I love their products for the most part).

But since I think their gaming divisions are ran better than the rest of the company... I can't see them shutting it down.
Microsoft's gaming division is making a lot.
And so is nintendo.
When you're making money you don't normally leave the market. Unless you think the market is going to become unprofitable.

I agree. :)

But if Sony has learned anything this gen, Its that no matter how good your hardware looks/sounds, It will never do well in the market if it does not have a reasonable starting price and get marketing to get it out to the public.

My point really boils down more or less to the fact that,  all three companies could see sustainable business moving forward.  I don't really see any either of them leaving the industry anytime in the near future.  The simple fact of the matter is,  if gaming goes south for all of these companies,  Nintendo stands the most to lose.  Point blank period.  

Nintendo while much, much better at managing their business than Sega.... and in a better situation financial Is really sitting in a position that is most reminscent of Sega .  Where as Microsoft and Sony have so many resources at their disposal and are almost at a point of being 'Too Big To Fail'.  If Sony changed their strategy to lower costs dramatically, their market reception would increase.

My honest opinion is next generation could very well see a landslide Microsoft / Sony dominated console breakdown.  The HD consoles have sold damn well despite the Wii owning so much marketshare.  Especially as Nintendo pushes towards an HD future for first time, they are going to incur more costs in development and will likely get a lot more aggressive in their strategies after the successful Wii generation.   The problem is, Nintendo has formed a reputation as almost an anti-thesis to what Sony and Microsoft have built themselves on to an extent,  they will lose a battle of HD.

The HD consoles have sold so damn well despite Wii's massive success, so therefore next gen could mean Nintendo fails.

Nintendo is getting more powerful hardware next gen and since they are not like Sony and MS it could mean doom due to higher development costs despite them having massive  amounts of money in the bank, being in no debt and having done research and development in prepararation for next gen game development.

No, I think MS just wanted to expand into the living room. Fortunately for MS, it was made easy this gen due to dumb decisions made by Sony thus giving ground to the competition.

I fail to see how Sony is more passionate about gaming. They put out more games but very few  of their titles are actually note worthy. You don't know what MS has under their sleeve either. We already know they're putting more studios together.

It would be stupid for MS not to invest in motion gaming. Kinect has been a real game changer for them. Notice the holiday sales? Sony doesn't invest much in motion gaming because Move is doing horrible.

I don't believe 360 is getting timed exclusives other than digital downloads. But the timed exclusives in the past gave them an edge and was probably cheap to get when PS3 sales were struggling.