haha I lol'ed!

Personally I'm not too sure about that... That would mean they're in the mercy of one single company, how could easily abuse that position (kinda like how Nintendo did in the 80's - even though it made the video game business as a whole better). Ideal would be to have 2 consoles I would think... Giving 3rd parties something to bargain with. "Oh, you want $20 i royalties for every game we sell? Well then, I think we're gonna publish ALL our games on console X instead..."

That's a common mistake. Nintendo's market cap is over 17 billion according to stock market data. Sony on the other hand is currently sitting at slightly over 10 billion. As a result, Nintendo is seen as the larger company according to the above. Furthermore, Sony has debt, Nintendo don't.

Sony is in an odd situation as it's gaming division is profitable; however, it's electronics division is bleeding money. However, it's Playstation brand is as strong as ever and in my opinion, Sony offers more content than any other platformer. It is the system of choice for its gaming library for any hardcore player (RPG's are very rare on Xbox). 

But you are right, Sony will survive. The gaming industry would not be the same without it.

Well, actually, Soundwave has a point here. The Yen is killing Japanese companies. When PS3 launched I think 1 dollar was worth 110 yen (not sure, but it was something like that). Nowadays 1 dollar is worth about 77 yen. Why does this matter you ask? well, if PS3 would launch today with the same price tag (which was almost 60'000 yen) that would be a $779 price tag. 60'000 diveded by 77 = 779. Back in 2006 when the yen was much weaker (you had to pay up more yen to get a single dollar) this would have been: 60'000 diveded by 110 = 545. That's a 234 dollar difference.

And that's why Microsoft is in such a good position. They don't have to deal in yen. They deal in dollars. They're actually not losing any money in overseas transactions. Just look at the Wii U. the basic pack is 26,250 yen in Japan and 299 dollars in the US. But if you would divede 26,250 with 77 you'd find out that the console actually costs 340 bucks in Japan. They're losing money by having the $299 price point.

http://kotaku.com/5960411/how-sony-is-turning-into-a-ghost-in-japan-and-around-the-world

Where's the source? I guess its straight from N4G right? Anyway, they said the same thing about the Wii.

Where is wii backward compatibility?

the market is too big to just have a ps2 anymore. Multiplats are so commonplace that most gamers will be happy no matter which one they choose.

It won't be the PS2 of the generation, but it might be the Wii of the generation.

I may not agree with #1 on the OP's point but there are some truth to it. Being first to the market can help you in some areas like 1) in terms of sales 2) in terms of securing games from 3rd party in order to build foundation on time before their competitor's next console release (in reality, this is what help microsoft greatly with their 360 even the RRoD didn't kill them because they were the only one in the market with nextgen console for year and had time to correct their errors).

Though there is one fact that has been occuring since generations back that being 1st on market, having install base of 10 million and above before the other competitor's release, have always won the console race.