"Sony is in no position to do this."

and loosing more Money is?

it seem's many on here think's its a catch 22 for Sony no matter what Sony does, if that is true, Than Sony shrinks it's foot print in trying to directly compete with Microsoft or Nintendo. Just like Apple and Samsung  and Google already do. Sony can miss a generation, and build up for the next, it's not like the PS3 sales will go belly up when the new xbox come's out? not while the xbox360 is still a viable platform on the shelf. At this price point of the PS3 its still not below $200.00 YET AND IS STILL GETTING 1ST PARTY EXCLUSIVES being released for the platform.

Sony's Mind share is already at the lowest among the Three anyway. they are in 3rd place right?

Sony could in fact wait. and have cheaper hardware at a cheaper price, i mean would the next xbox release @ what price point?

what if Sony wait's for an extra year after that. the price for the hardware would be cheaper and they could have more 1st party exclusives to ship with the console. Mean while the next xbox's hardware will still be the same when it released a year or two year's before Sony. Say Microsoft get's these 3rd party publisher's are going to ignore the WiiU? even if Sony does not have a next generation platform out at the same time as Nintendo and Microsoft? Has that stopped Nintendo with the WiiU releasing a year or more before the next sony and xbox platform?

Think about it less about direct challenge, but release to better support the platforms they have out now. both the PS3 and the PSVita will be cheaper by then. they most likely kill the orig PSP by then they already killed the PS2 now. Sony will be down to two platforms. Microsoft has only One the xbox360 soon to have a second.

it seem's the consensus is Microsoft's offering of One console is more viable than all of the Playstation platforms combined..well its the truth right? Microsoft makes more Money and sell's more software. So what if Sony takes that very Line of thinking Concentrates on their existing platforms, software is what matter's right ? How it sell's just because it's made for a platform over 6 year's make's it less entertaining than what Microsoft offer's? that Must be true the way Halo sales better than every Sony 1st party exclusives they make. But yet Sony keep's investing into 1st party.

Sony can change it's idea on how to run it's game console Biz. they are not locked in to what defines Nintendo and Microsoft do. Sony is it's own company.

is nextbox coming out in 2015-2020? if not then no Sony won't release PS4 in 2016.

I've been thinking exactly the same for some time now. It would effectively be giving the Nextbox next gen but would it matter? If Sony are brave enough to wait two years into the lifecycle of the Nextbox then they could release a console that is a generation after the Nextbox, which in turn would put Microsoft in a problematic position. Do they wait 5 years to release a console or release a console earlier to compete with Sony's 'next' gen machine? It would be a bold move by Sony but with the PSP, Vita and PS3 still on the market, they'd have plenty of scope for their 1st party studios, and familiarity with the hardware would give developers a good way of recouping any losses they make off of Wiiu games.

Any sooner and the gap would be pointless. Any later and Microsoft could release their next machine a year afterwards. So 2016 would be the perfect date.

I still think that Vita will be fine and consider the position it's in to be a good one. I'm not talking sales here, I'm talking 'handheld' space. It's effectively occupying a space that Nintendo would want to move into at some point in the future because it's at least a generation ahead of the 3DS.

The problem with Sony releasing in 2016 is their console sales steadily dropping. Why buy a $250 console now when you can save another $150 and get a brand new console within a year or two.

Even if the price were to drop to $150 by 2015, it still wouldn't be a huge bump in sales. Sure they might be profitable but what's the point if they're only bringing in enough to keep their company afloat. And if someone waited until the PS3 dropped to $150 in price, you know they aren't going to be buying games brand new, they're going to be waiting until the games are cheap or buy them used. Sony gains no money from used game sales and neither do the developers. So the only games people will buy are the PS3 exclusive games, all 3rd party games will transition over to the Nextbox and the WiiU because they will slowly get more and more gimped on the PS3. This means Sony makes even less money.

You might think "at least they're making a profit" but games have to sell enough to cover their production value. Less sales = less profit from the games. If they spend more time on focusing on their games then the production values go up and they risk not making a profit off their games if they don't sell enough copies. On top of that Sony have to cover their operational, production and marketing costs so they need the extra profit.

If they manage to do well then they'd still need to be putting money into research and development for the PS4 in order to have a console for 2016. That's an extra 2-3 years of R&D, which is a sink hole for money. They don't get any return from it until after the console is released and even then they won't be profitable until they make as much money as they spent on R&D.

It will be hard to gain a profit if released in 2016 because the install base for the Nextbox and the WiiU will be around 35k, probably more. No one will want to buy a PS4 in comparison because they're friends are all on another console and not many people can afford to buy 2 consoles right away so less people are going to buy the PS4. They also have this catalogue of games built up for one console and will most likely continue to buy multi-plats on that console. 3rd parties will be hesitant to put their games on the system at launch and with such a small install base compared to the other consoles at the start, some games might not go to the PS4 at all.

If Sony were to forget about the 3rd parties and instead go for the mobile/ tablet market. They make some sort of console/ Vita hybrid. IMO it's a horrible idea because unless they turn the Vita into a smartphone they won't be able to tap into the market the way they'd like. The casual consumer isn't going to buy a dedicated gaming machine for games that are similar to the ones on their smartphone. We're also seeing a bit this gen with the Vita and the 3DS where most casuals don't want a portable gaming system because their smartphone is good enough. So all that would leave is the 1st party games and although I love Sony's 1st party games... they just don't sell as well as the other consoles exclusive games and can't survive without 3rd party support right now.

Well 2014 is the earliest PS4 will be released. 2015 seems good if they have best hardware by a good margin, like 50% performance over 720 as rumors suggest and yet affordable 499$. PS3 will be doing fine for 3-4yrs easily. This year is great with Ni Ko Kuni starting off.

I think when they release does not matter as long it is 50% powerful than the 720 and have good launch, start.

Let us wait till april to see PS3 number in FY. Unlike Wii, PS3 has many games. In fact this year is great for PS3. It is the most selling console and super slim will probably get price drop this year.

This discussion could have ended here because the bolded part is not true. Sony has to maintain a certain level of hardware sales for the console to be profitable. If they sell 1m consoles a year the hardware might be profitable but they still need to pay their workforce, provide service, pay for advertisement costs, etc. There is an aweful lot of fixed costs and Sony has to reach a certain sales volume to operate profitably. 

Just google "product life cycle" and you'll realize this is wrong.

Edit: Long story short: Waiting until 2016 would be a financial disaster for Sony because they wouldn't be able to keep their operations running with only a PS3 at extremely slow sales.

Nope it can't. In 3 years a lot of new technology will arrive with probably Gaikai providing quality games through televisions/phones/tablets etc. Since technology is growing that fast people wont have the need for a console when there are a lot of other ways to play games/ therefore I think Sony should release it's next console end of this year. In 3-5 years the technological world will drasticallt change.

Sony and Microsoft BOTH have multimedia machines, but the difference between Sony and Microsoft is that they dont force multimedia down your throat, its optional, secondary to the games. The term Xbox is no longer exclusive to consoles but is expanding to media devices Microsoft has a hand in.