Guys, what are you doing? START HYPING ACE ATTORNEY 5!

Oh someone needs to study their history

Wii U won´t reach the 12 millions units sold by the end of the year as the OP suggest, but certainly the turnaround is inevitable

Dawn of the LAST day...(less than) 24 hours remaining...and then Wii Party U will be finally there.

Seems that Play Station 4 will be the last console for Sony. Read what Katsuhiro Tetsuo Harada (Producer of the Tekken series) has to say about it:

http://www.dualshockers.com/2013/10/04/tekkens-producer-thinks-the-ps5-wont-be-a-console-but-itll-just-be-a-service-based-on-the-cloud/

So there could be another market divide in the future. While Sony and Microsoft will focus more on the cloud, Nintendo stays persistent and will release traditional consoles all the time which of course means Nintendo will dominate the console market once again cause' there won't be any competition anymore ^^ Nintendo's task will be then to create an important DIFFERENCE with their console to make it worth the purchase. Seems like cloud gaming will be like mobile gaming, just a NEW PC-market.

Nintendo will ensure coexistence :)

Well, let's just wait a few years and we'll see then

There's no purpose to a Cloud Console.
It's not a console anymore, it's a service.
Problem is there are other better services already (iTunes, Steam) available so they have no unique advantage.
Since Sony is not really 1st party based there's nothing unique about a PlayStation service.
Their exclusives outside of maybe Gran Turismo just don't have that sway.

Besides Sony is married to physical media. They depend on sales of discs & players.
So destroying that aspect pretty much destroys that entity known as Sony Computer Entertainment.

Making a console unique is what keeps it alive.
Some quirk or feature that separates it from the general PC & makes it accessible to the general buying public.
PS2's addition of a all-purpose DVD player worked for Sony, a maker of DVDs & DVD players.
That gave it a unique edge the others didn't have & it fit right in line with Sony's general manufacturing tenets.

Problem with Sony is that they're not really gamemakers so they overdo it on peripheral features not necessarily connected to gaming.
They push up formats like Blu-ray & overstuff the system with too much power too soon resulting in what we see in the PSP & PS3.
It caught up to them & now they are sort of lost at what to do.

PlayStation had CDs. Sony co-created the CD, the compact disc, with Phillips.
PlayStation 2 had DVDs. Sony co-created the DVD, the digital video disc, as part of the DVD Forum.
PlayStation Portable had UMDs. Sony created the UMD, the Universal Media Disc, all by themselves.
PlayStation 3 had Blu-rays. Sony co-created Blu-ray, the Blu-ray Disc, as part of the Blu-ray Disc Association.

PlayStation Vita has....um...uhhhh.....hmm.
PlayStation 4 has....ummm.....uhhhhh.....OK.

After the PSP & PS3 failed in their missions, Sony has been going away from the aspects that actually made them successful in this business.
And I don't think it's gonna be good for them.
They NEED physical media & physical devices. They didn't come from the ethereal world of the World Wide Web like Google & Valve's Steam did.
The non-presence of OnLive is a clue to what happens when you get your heads all lost in the clouds.

It was one thing to have a Sega Channel back in the day. But we still had the actual Sega Genesis to go along with it.

But you know it's pointless for me to even have this discussion.
Nintendo will ENSURE that Sony makes this bad decision after what they do to both Sony & Microsoft in this 8th generation.
Hell, there might not even be a PlayStation 5 PERIOD when Wii U gets done with the place.
John Lucas

PS3 didn't fail its mission in that context: Blu-ray achieved market dominance over HD-DVD and a substantial amount of the credit goes to the PS3. It was frankly one of the better Blu-ray players on the market in the early days, let alone that it played games as well.

Also, Sony may not be in the same league software-wise that Nintendo is, but they still have a lot of developers under their stable making some good games. They'd have as good a chance as anyone to try competing with Steam; the problem is that Steam has such a head start that it's probably tilting at windmills to do it alone. A large group of publishers may have a chance, if this console to service thing actually happens.

Which it won't, for my money. All the talk about consoles going to cloud in the next generation is either sheer speculation, or pure hot wind about the buzzword of the month conquering the planet, and I don't see it happening.

- Spam removed -

PS2 actually failed in one aspect. Sony wanted the system to become a PC for the TV. It didn't work out, but it did bring the Xbox into the fray. I am fairly certain that if Sony left, Microsoft might drop out as well.