I normally discourage those but people seem to think that because of the overall bad financial standing of the company that they can't spend money on anything now.  As in they won't advertise or have to sell PS4 at a profit, which I think is ridiculous.  Personally I'm not predicting anything as this generation proved the previous one means very little in determining the next.  People who make safe bets like "MS will win America, Sony Europe, and Nintendo Japan" are just using this gen as indicators ignoring all the variables that still are left unresolved.  Price is a pretty big freaking deal and we don't know what MS or Sony will price their machines.  I don't think power will matter that much as I don't think MS or Sony be powerful enough that devs will want to take advantage with multiplats (just like PS360 it didn't other than a few Sony 1st party titles).  Will MS have a subscription based model?  Will Sony charge for online?  What exclusives will there be ready?  The release dates are hopefully both for this holiday so we can have an even competition there (at least between the MS and Sony), but what about streaming?  What about BC?  I'll wait till at LEAST the 20th to decide.  My personal way of looking at it is MS had 4 HUGE advantages this gen (price, release date, architecture, and exclusives at the start when they matter a lot more).  What happened?  They are going to end up last.  If the 2 biggest of those are taken away (price and release date) then we could see a very large shift towards Sony.  But maybe I'm wrong and xbox brand is too big in US and UK now.  Maybe MS will make some monstrously powerful console and destroy the competition.  Maybe MS doesn't care as long as their OS dominance is protected so they'll just take a $200 loss and undercut Sony that way.   Who the hell knows at this point?

I think it'll win because it has the most momentum going into the next gen. The announce date isn't really a factor in my opinion.

Well if Microsoft play there cards right, I think they will win next gen in terms of sales for the first time, Nintendo may return to third place, buy that doesn't mean the U won't be successful and great platform.

And how are the software sales of your little DS? Not to mention it's a handheld and the PS2 was a console. LOL come at me.

Don't forget that the DS is a handheld though. Handhelds always receive lots of extra sales since relatives who'd usually play split screen want to play with each other. As a result, software tie ratios are twice as high on the PS2.

Edit: Ninja'd by Riderz.

Nintendo has made profits on systems that have sold 70 million and 130 million less than the market leaders so they will be fine.

People love their console of choice. They are just fanboys.

Personally I'm iffy. I'm just looking at Sony's past.

1. PS1 - Huge success
2. PS2 - Huge Success (updated PS1 basically, price fine)
3. PS3 - Slow start, fine now (updated PS2 basically, Price horrendous)
4. PSP - handheld ps2 basically (not bad)
They were decent there, just bad pricing on ps3 part, maybe late to game too hurt it. BUT then now I look at their future HARDWARE decisions.

1. The Move controller
2. PSP Go
3. Vita

Their last 3 hardware innovations or releases really don't instill confidence in me for what their PS4 might be. Not saying those 3 things above were bad, but they didn't exactly do good. Reasons for each failure are different, but they all basically are failures (at moment). So I'm a bit reserved on handing Sony a trophy before I see the PS4 based on how their most recent hardware products did.

I don't think they'll win because of when they announce, but what they'll announce.

Also "destroy" is a rather bold claim they won't be dominant in America or UK but I think they'll be much closer and dominate Europe and Japan (obviously) compared to MS.  WiiU doesn't look to have much of a presesnce in Europe so I'm thinking maybe 35-40% market share and leading next gen.

yea but if that was psp instead of ds then it would count right? Nice try

Its too early to tell.

What i do know is that Microsoft is in a difficult position. They are under fire due to greed with Xbox live gold and only making the games that sell millions over and over again, having no variety in their portfolio.

If you think about gamers as fans of certain game genres think about it:

Action/adventure > This gamer is gonna go to Sony if it isnt already.
Racing > This gamer is good on any console.
RPG > This gamer is probably gonna choose Nintendo and Sony because microsoft does not have japanese support.
Platformer > This gamer keeps to Nintendo.
Shooting > This is the only gamer that will stick to Microsoft.

The 360 had some early adopters due to the ammount of JRPG's they got at the start. These will be gone this time around. Also those old Nintendo fans that believed Rare was still gonna make more games after Kameo and Perfect dark zero, those are both lost.
You see where im getting at. These last 2 years of the 360 will become very costly for the nextBox. There are many unhappy gamers that will change fields next gen.

With that said, in the US the system will be fine. Its completely obvious that Microsoft knows how to tackle the american market, even with things like the kinect that in theory arent worth the price.