Here's the thing, right? and it' what number crunchers always fail to factor in.

Accessories, headsets, controllers, cables and so on - including but not limited to stuff like playstation move - that's all profits for Sony, and since the sixaxis to ds3 dabacle, i'm going to assume an awful lot of controllers have been sold. these figures are never included with 'hardware' calculations despite being hardware because of the headache behind tracking so many individual products - but consider the following, the PlayStation Move wasn't immensely successful but unlike controllers and so on, its sale path could be tracked.. now also consider this.. hardware suddenly spiked from loss to profits in 2010... when did the trackable PS move release again? thats right, 2010.

If you factor in the additional hardware, the PS3 is probably in the profitiable zone quite comfortably.

none of this means however that a consoles success is down to it's power, but theres not two consoles on the market, theres three, if sony dont push the hardware enough they'll be in direct competition with WiiU, and will definitely lose, if they push the hardware enough they can compete with Microsoft - The PS3 has, if you consider the year less on sale, more or less outsold the 360 by quite a bit despite it's poor start but if it were more on par and easier to develop for like the 360 it wouldnt have had a rough start, in releasing a console with as similar architecture and spec to the competitior as possible, multiplatform titles become a none issue and the race for success is down to platform exclusives alone, something Sony can out-trump Microsoft in.

As i said though, performance isn't related to sales, as the Wii showed, but this thread isn't about that, it's about which consoles will be the most powerful.

The PS2 got the same need for speed games as the ps3, and despite the ps3's absolutely piss poor start, the PS3 version outsold the PS2, despite the PS2's the immense install base, never underestimate the power of a new console and 'shiny graphics'

WD was running on a high end PC, not a console if the game looked too polished to be a PS720 game how would it be a PS360 game? - The game was being played with a Windows 360 wireless controller. but that's as close to a console as the code was at that point.

As I said in my previous post, I would of thought that SW sales and accessories would have been included in the overall numbers of Sony's Gaming Business, so until we know that (or you maybe can tell me straight out how it is?) there's really no point in arguing over that topic. I must confess that I don't have a clue if those numbers (sw and accessories) are included, so I can't add anything further to that part of the discussion.

Yes, I must agree that in this day and age when few titles, except 1st party, is exclusive, PS wouldn't stand a chance against Wii U if it had similar specs. And since the faulty launch and over all design of the PS3 has let Xbox to get a foot hold in gaming and get established as a brand, it'll be VERY interesting to see how the PS4 will do against x3ox. I would think that whom ever has the best/most interesting USP will win that battle. Now when they seem to have about the same specs and architecture, they will need something to differentiate themselves...

In your opinion, which system will pack the most punch??

What PS3 did has no basis on how PS4 will perform, they won't be similar. PS4 will be significantly cheaper to produce and it will cost cheaper than PS3 did thanks to a cheaper bluray drive and absence of a Cell 2. It won't make a huge loss like the PS3. Bluray players cost $1000 in 2006, Sony put a lot of money in the development of Cell. They would've learned from their mistakes. All Sony 1st parties are working on PS4 now, the system will have lots of games. (PS3 got it first system sellers in 2008.)

Saying PS4 won't be cutting edge makes 0 sense. What is cutting edge to you? Putting GTX680 in a PS4? It doesn't need it, its overkill. The rumoured components are plausible, 7970M has comparable performances to a hd7870 despite using less power.

If PS4 costs Sony 450 to make, they either sell it at that price and break even, or sell it at 500 and make profit, or sell it at 400 and take a small loss.

WiiU has no chance to win next gen, there is no hype, casuals think its an addon for the Wii. It will be a console for Nintendo fans.

PC, always PC.

I've got three GK110's on pre-order direct from the bigwigs at Nvidia once they announce the damn thing, when they go in my machine and replace the cards i have already, the next gen consoles will pale in comparison on my 4K display.

But, putting my lust for technology to one side (kind of*),

Power wise i'm going to be blunt with power/capability:

PS2 < XBOX < Wii < PS3 < WiiU < 360 < 720 < PS4 < PC*

That's basically it, if anyone wants to argue the fact, or any PS3 fans get butthurt about it being behind the WiiU, which itself is behind the 360, it's because Sony decided to force us developers to use Cell for graphical computation then throw it through RSX, because of this design choice while the console is capable of great visuals, in the right hands the WiiU can do more - just behind the 360 in raw power - if Microsoft killed the dashboard and freed up the memory and cpu cycles it uses, the WiiU wouldn't stand a chance.

I don't think I ever said that we could judge the PS4 from how the PS3 has performed. If so, please show me the sentence; I might have worded it wrong.

And I do agree that PS4 will be a great deal cheaper; never argued that either. I've said it'll probably cost $400, and that Sony will take a $50 hit at most per sold console. $50 isn't "taking a small loss" if you sell 10m PS4 and losing $50 on each sale; that's half a billion in losses. half-a-billion. Sure, they'd make up some of it with SW, but that's still pretty much money, especially for a company that don't have any money, and has lousy credit rating.

And saying the Wii U can't win next gen is like saying that PS3 wasn't going to be able to turn around and will end up dead last out of the 3 back in 2006/2007...

I stopped reading your allucination after seeing that. It is so wrong that there is no need to explain why. Time will tell, you'll see yourself. :p

Wrong. Sony has over 14 billion on cash reserves, twice the ammount of money Nintendo currently has. And that's down from 21 billion after the 2011-2012 losses and everyone hopes they start to profit again coming the next quarters.

It's really hard to bring a compnay down. Microsoft has $54 billion in cash reserves and there are still articles of doom. One thing to remember, specially looking at how Apple shares still manage to fall after record profits: investors are cowards. And I don't say it in a derrogatory way. Money needs to flow to where it has the most chance of prospering and that isn't among japanese companies, not with that yen. That's how ruthless capitalism works.