Sony ain't leaving, they will just price their hardware lower and out source more design/development in the future.

MS should leave hardware, get some devs and become a publisher.

avatar clothing is an important feature of XBL!

Why? MS hardware is more successful than Sonys hardware right now.

None of the 3 will leave this industry after this gen. Sony will be the one to rethink their strategy the most, but they won't leave either.

The N64 was very profitable, and the Gameboy was booming by the end of that generation.

There's very little chance Microsoft, as a tech company, would stick around if they either:

a)they didn't see a huge opportunity in the future of living room based gaming..

b)were not succeeding at it..

With how the trends seem to be pointing at a mobile future, and a declining living room market, both scenarios are possible. The idea is really that, inherently, a technology company isn't tied to the gaming market as much.. so it makes more sense to wonder about them leaving before ever asking that question of a company that is entertainment based like Nintendo.. or even Sony in lesser ways..

- they suck at hardware design.
- they are getting out sold by pricer hardware.
- they are good at marketing and pushing software, would be good publisher.
- why fight Sony and Nin hardware, when you can benefit from them.
- their reason for getting into it (PS2 taking over PCs world, did not happen and wont happen) PCs Windows is safe from consoles.

Necrobumping is not ok, and since the thread is broken, more reason to lock it

Personally, I would say that the "XBox Strategy" is dead but Microsoft will probably continue to release consoles for several generations. I don’t think we will ever see another console designed to exclusively appeal to (so-called) "Hard-Core" gamers; or that pushes technology at the expense of size, affordability, and reliability. This isn’t to say that companies won’t produce games for core gamers (they will) or won’t advance technology (they will), they will just do these things in a more balanced way. Essentially, expect to see consoles with much more conventional processing power, that don’t take massive losses up front, and have a library that includes games for all people who have an interest in gaming.