With its Gakai purchase who says Sony needs a PS4? Just subscribe to PS+ and have next gen games streamed to your PS3/V. With both being cheap as all hell it would be very enticing. ~$200 dollar "next" gen consoles before 720 or Wii-U can even get a price drop in. Seeing how little Nintendo upped the game I really dont see Sony needing to drop another console to compete.

The (sad, for many) fact of the matter is, Micro$oft is a big bully, they have now officially arrived, and like termites have eaten through PS user base by half. Even in EUR, MS will take over Sony next gen. So this trend will only continue, due to brand reputation alone. MS will do w/e the hell they want. They will be the most powerful, even if its only for the sake of having the best looking exclusives. Sony is ****** stuck in a lonely middle. I know its hard for their die hard fans to admit this, but as a fan of ALL THREE, my discerning eye shows me Sony is in deep ****. Excuse the pun but what's their next move?

I don't see Sony being satisfied by just being a player in the game, or have their certain hardcore group, they must dominate. This gen was a huge slap in the face, and its only going to get worse for them. PS4 may be in development but honestly, it wouldn't shock me if it never released, or, if they sold their PS brand to help revitalize their company. PS is the best thing about Sony, so sacrificing that sector may be what's required to save that company. We'll see what happens, but the future isn't bright IMO.

Viper1? I can't see any posts by Viper1 in this thread.

The main reason for the massive cost of HD console hardware was updating it to fit current gen shaders and post-rendering effects along with actually being able to output HD visuals (or near) at acceptable framerates, there is no such jump to the next gen (multicore rendering is a breeze now, for instance).
That means that they will largely build on current core tech and simply expand upon already existing paradigms for development and rendering, the compression rates will also stay very similar for textures, sound and other content.
This does not mean, however, that there won't be a significant leap in technology and the looks of games, especially physics and AI as a means of greater immersion will start to shine for real, and people say the same thing every gen anyway; "the visuals can't/don't need to get better now", which is simply false and a naive stance to assume for anyone.

Now, on to 3rd party support.
There is nothing to suggest that the WiiU will fare better than the Wii in terms of 3rd party support, what it will likely get in heaps instead is late PS360 ports to begin with. Very few 3rd parties will have the balls and patience, and not to mention desire, to utilize the GamePad is a meaningful way, thus leading to a situation similar to that of the Wii-mote; a brilliant controller which never realized its potential at all.
The way the Wii has simply gone and died at the end of the cycle and been crushed by the competition, with even Nintendo themselves not giving a damn (apparently) any longer is sure to make the already timid 3rd parties even more sceptical, and the few chances the Wii got to show its muscles as far as moving multiplatform titles with some actual effort put into it in any actual numbers have also come up lacking. (Remember when people said that Nintendo would follow their pattern and suddenly drop the console in favor of a new one/new one's? Guess what? It happened again, right on cue, Nintendo aren't as reformed as many would like to think sometimes).

Bottom line is; Nintendo are trying to attack two markets at the same time and will fall inbetween the chairs, they're trying to keep the casuals through continued production of casual titles and want to regain their core base and steal customers from the HD consoles all the while attempting to cater to tablet and handheld gamers with their rather unorthodox controller. Unorthodox might not always be a good thing and I think the tablet controller could prove to be the WiiU's greatest asset and weakness all at once.
Another issue will be the fact that Nintendo are playing catch-up on technology and features, where they'll quite simply be beat by better alternatives through smartphones, tablets, PC's and eventually the PS4 and X-box 720.
What they are bragging about as news is old news to users of other platforms and gear and the whole console just reeks of a little misguided design and desperation, they're attempting to be a jack-of all trades but master of none and this will be a great challenge to overcome.

They have lost a lot of face during the Wii's last two years or so and the amount of "I told you so"'s being flung their way is staggering, even Reggie is being mostly quiet these days and massive proponents such as Malstrom and some of our own zealots have abandoned ship a long time ago. Have any of you noticed the complete lack of outlandish claims and predictions for the WiiU and its lifespan? Surely, this console is being launched into a hesitant, fast moving, fickle and treacherous market where it may very well fall short of even moderate expecations (such as mine). If the Wii taught us anything, it would have to be that one is not underestimate Nintendo and one is not to overestimate them.

Could Nintendo win next gen? Sure, they could, as their opponents will be facing some of the same troubles and obstacles but to me it seems like they're trying to copy the success of the Wii, so much in fact, that they have lost their sense of direction. Their early presentations of the WiiU revealed a company in a daze, unprepared and shaken, having their hand forced to leap into the next generation first due to grave circumstances, this is never a good setup for a success.
The Wii was deliberate, focused and determined, the WiiU holds none of that quality and that is why I remain convinced that it has no chance to reach Wii-like sales, not even close (and I will keep repeating that).

Good read!  Another reason why the next gen console of Sony will not be a drastic leap is this:   Remember the  "PS4 will have  Avatar like graphics" debate? 

Okay now just think about it for a second.  Avatar the movie was  released in 2009 okay but they used  40,000 processors and 104 terabytes of RAM to render frame by frame by frame etc. etc.  So how exactly should the PS4 be able to render 60 frames or even 30 per second with the ability to do 180° turns as opposed to the fixed camera in movies? Those movies also lack  A.I etc. 

There is simply no way this kind of technology can be sold for 500 dollars or so.

If WiiU looks as good as the Zelda HD demo suggests and Sony can in no way achive Avatar like graphics they will obviously settle for something inferior to Avatar like graphics.

But todays consoles almost completely recreated all the "effects" the real world has compared to the last gen that almost lacked everything.  We have nice looking water we have clouds we have acceptable shadows (albeit with room for improvement)  and nice lighting effects etc. 

Polygon count is something less obvious then effects or is it really visible that the Ps2 Version of Resident Evil 4 has half the polygons of the Gamecube version?  
Or did you know that Drake in uncharted has 30000 polygons compared to the 12000 of the pirates he fights? OR did you know that characters in Crysis for Pc only have 8000 polygons of which 3000 are for the heads only? 3000 that is twice the polygons Mario in Mario sunshine had.

Polygon count  is nothing uber obvious. Todays graphics need  a huge amount of processing power to make even the smallest visible changes (exluding changes that appear because of smart developers coming up with new ways and tricks to make the games visually more appealing)

The leap between WiiU and Ps4 will not be that big.  Ps4 might have some tesselation going on and some better textures but thats it.  Maybe it will be a  PS2 vs XBOX 1  difference.

And btw if games use awesome art style  Polygon cout is almost unimportant.

This is ridiculous.  360 and PS3 won't ever come close to 100 million, and their follow ups won't sell any more than they did.  PS2 and PS1 sold so many consoles because they were easy to develop for, and had all of the games.  PS3 and 360 were tough consoles to start developing on.  It took significant investment to reach a level of graphics and online integration that was up to par with what Sony and MS were willing to license.  This will not change next gen.  Also, gaming has shifted.  You will get fewer and fewer people making impulse buys, or using their system as a DVD player like PS2, since they can play the game they want on their phone/tablet.  I would say that all 3 next gens sell around 60 million. 

What about OUYA? Lets not count them out of the race :P

Sony need all comsumers next gen.. not just those that has a very fast internet.. And as you saw with onlive.. they need a lot of server centers to.. The "only streaming consol" (like onlive and samsung tv's) will not could deliver 1080p.. to more than.. mayby 25%.. before.. soonest 10 years..

Ont.

First of all.. sony and ms..  also needs to copy the upad.. meaning one tablet controller  (or vita.. and it will need to have buttons.. meaning a smartphone or ipad wont do the job) with every consol.. wii u will make the tablet a standard.. (just like motion)

When it comes to power...: Look at the 360 vs ps3.. theres one year between them.. and grafic are still allmost the same..

Therefor.. IF MS or sony should make a 2x more powerful consol.. i think it would be to expensive.. 

And offcourse wii u will win.. They had all the others had.. and nintendo franchises..

I'm leaving the rest of your post aside because I agree with what you say, but I don't think the GamePad and the Wiimote will face the same fate.

And the reason is obvious: the gamepad has all the features that a regular controller have, plus the screen. It's not like the wiimote, which suffered from the lack of buttons and caused problems for third parties, "how do we make the player to crouch? - Just press L3... oh, wait". It's true that many devs may not want to think in original ways to use the screen, but for those there is always the simple yet functional and useful option to simply show a map or the inventory on it.

Even more. If devs want to make games/ports that need more processing power than what WiiU is usually able to give them, showing only a map or the inventory or even the stats of our character on the GamPad's screen will free a lot of resorces as, instead of having to render 2 demanding frames for each screen they will only have 1, giving them the extra power needed for those games.

I think you're right about one thing; none of the consoles will sell 100 million, or even close. I disagree with the rest of your post though.

PS1 and PS2 were notoriously hard to develop for, the PS1 gained massive 3rd party support mostly because they sensed that Sega was nearing a crash and they wanted to flee from Nintendo, which had offered shitty conditions for a decade with their near monopoly since the 80's, the PS2 simply inherited these advantages and came off of the best selling console in history but was still a bitch to develop for. Both consoles also pushed new formats and the PS1 was a small revolution when it came out.

The 360 is well known for its conventional and kind architecture, making it perhaps the easiest console ever released to develop for alongside the PC. There will be no rise in the cost of development of HD games (see that point discussed in my large previous post) so that won't be an issue, the processes here have been largely streamlined and become a lot more cost efficent than in the beginning of the 7th generation. There's a reason why the 360 was the lead platform for almost every 3rd party multiplatform title for a long time (until marketshares and timed exclusive content and moneyhatting became prevalent). The WiiU is built on chipsets and processing tech that is two PC generations removed from the PS4 and X-box 720 and they will have a lot more and faster RAM so three times the power is not only fathomable, its a downright given even to casual observers.

True console games can not be played on tablets and phones, these are usually grossly inferior editions or most of the big games simply don't get released at all. If anything, tablet and phone gaming, at this stage, is more like the PStore Classics or X-box Arcade, offering basic games for a cheap sum. These do not directly compete with big budget titles released on consoles and PC since they are two entirely different markets.

Your last statement seems about right, I expect the overall number of consoles and handhelds sold next gen to be smaller than this one since the cycle itself will be shorter and the hardware market is branching out when it comes to media functionality and entertainment features.

The winning console next gen might very well win by as little as 10 million units or less in the allotted time on the market.

Edit; JEMC: I hope this won't be the case with the GamePad but I fear it. The inventory/looting system and aiming in ZombiU, for instance, is original and different and it really got me excited then and there. In hindsight though, it appears rather cumbersome and the controls themselves seemed a tad unresponsive and slow. You never know though, I might be surprised and the controller has big potential in the right hands (speaking of both gamers and developers... ).