I personally would hate to see either happen, but I thought this topic might be very, very, amusing.

Sony sells their game division to Nintendo. Nintendo go under from the inherited debt and liabilities and go third party.

Fail poll?                   ^ ^ I'll take Sal's answer.

I was editing the choices due to a typo, is it still failing?

based on financials and how long nintendo's been around, I'd go with Sony selling off their gaming division.

Not the situation I'd prefer, but the one that's more likely between the two.

I also wonder who would really be interested in Sony's gaming division -Playstation is still a strong brand name but not one that Nintendo or Microsoft would use. Their first party study is also very diverse - it could be a good in for Apple or any other big company trying to break in to gaming.

Not that either situation is likely to happen, but for argument's sake, it would definitely be the Sony option. Like Tor said, Nintendo's been around for over one hundred years. Yes, they had a bad year last year, but you still have to realize it's the first time they've posted a loss in the over three decades since they started making game consoles. They are in absolutely no danger of going third-party any time soon.

Sony, on the other hand, has been bleeding money for awhile. In this hypothetical version of reality where one of these two options happened, the several-billion-dollar lump-sum they could get by selling the Playstation brand and their internal developers would look mighty enticing.

Interesting question.

Nintendo

Only because Sony will go bankrupt before selling their games division. Their new head of the company was the CEO of gaming who turned the PS3 around. Now gaming is one of Sony's three pillars and is the only thing making them money.

Is this even a question? I don't mean to bash or anything but look how Sony is doing so far, not so great, I know.

SEGA makes a triumphant return when it buys out Sony's games division and then releases the SEGA DreamStation!

Of course, this would never, ever happen as SEGA barely has enough money to buy lunch these days.