Part of me thinks they will release it closer to Microsoft's console this time, but, as people keep saying, the PS3 is doing really well and they still have a lot of games set to release for it but i would imagine late 2013 or early 2014 would make sense.

So the CEO of PlayStation France wants to mimic SEGA's decision to artificially cut the Saturn's lifespan short preventing a return to profitability in order to beat the competition to the market? Does Sony have a single competent executive?

Last thing they'd want to do is announce the PS4 and kill off the PS3's momentum.

Which would you rather, Sony killing of the PS3 early preventing the sale of an additional 10 million units, or Sony releasing the PS4 too late and killing off the brand?

You do realize that stores stopped selling the Saturn and its games months before Sega pulled the plug on it, right?

Sega made a lot of mistakes with the Genesis at the end of its life and with the Saturn, but Sega really didn't kill off the Saturn early; the Saturn died on its own as it lost all support from third party publishers and retailers.

I'm reasonably sure both Sony and MS are ready to launch in 2013, if really needed, but I'm also reasonably sure both will be happy to launch in 2014, if they can. A launch in 2012 can be excluded, with PSV and Wii U already launching, adding anything else there'd be too many contenders to fight for the spotlight.

Well since the Wii U is really just catching up to the PS3/360 in terms of power/technology (or slightly surpassing them) there isn't that much need for new consoles since the PS3 is doing so well right now. And at $249/$299 it has room to drop still.

It's safe to say that once the PS3 suffers YoY losses over the holiday on par with the Wii in 2011, one can expect to hear a PS4 announcement the following E3.

Of course this is one of those chicken and the egg questions: did the Wii sales tank because consumers were aware that the Wii-U was coming a year later, or did they tank because the platform had simply run out of steam?

If it was the latter, then it would go a long way in explaining why Nintendo did their big announcement almost a year and a half before the scheduled release without even having any real game demos to fully showcase the new hardware.

well i did say 2020. got's to love music! i'm as happy as a bee in honey.

Everyone knows Sony just breathed a huge sigh of relieve after hearing that M$ has no plans to announce a new console this year. Nice spin on their part trying to make it seem like their under a lot less pressure due do declining Wii sales... as of the PS3 and Wii were ever direct competitors this gen.

And what analysts honestly believe that PS4 will arrive before the NextBox? All indications point to M$ revealing and launching the 360's successor by holiday 2013... there's no way in hell that Sony puts out the PS4 before then, and there's not even a 50/50 chance at this point that Sony will be able to match M$ launch date for their next gen console.