Alright now I've been around since the NES days and since the NES days I can't recall a single video game console generation where there has been four successful competitors in the video games industry. Unless you count computers!

I mean every time a fourth competitor enters one console manufacturer gets whacked. You have the very fist company to go since I've been around Atari who was officially killed when Sony entered the console wars, you have 3DO which died upon arrival mid generation. You've got DreamCast which died right as Microsoft entered the industry.

So the question you gotta ask yourself is, is their ever going to be room for a fourth successful competitor? Has their ever been four successful competitors?

So if one of these three gets killed who do you think will be the next company to fill the void? Other competitors like TheInfiniumPhantom and the Epextreme never even made it to store shelves being killed off by the competition before even making it to the shelves.

Could somebody new enter the industry and succesfully compete as a fourth competitor or kill off one of the current ones. I mean all three current competitors are very financially entrentched for a battle to the bitter end so could somebody even feasably kill one of them off? 

Two thoughts:

1. As the industry grows more consoles can be successful (to some degree).
2. As the industry grows it takes more and more money to successfully enter the market.

Realistically, there are only a handful of companies which are large enough and inovative enough to successfully enter into the market; most of which I believe have little interest in gaming.

Ugh... 3 choices is bad enough!

Apple could probably do it, or sega if they returned to the race. If Activision decided to make consoles, I think they would do well, concidering all the awesome games that would only be available on their system.

I'd have to agree the only companies that come to mind are

Apple

Cisco

Apex

Then of course their are the few publishers big enough to enter (Activision,Sega, EAGames,UbiSoft) but none of them would likely take any chances at crashing and burning!

I think if the recently suggested Apple intro occurs they would be smart to team up with Cisco who also wants to enter the industry. Cisco had talked about buying Nintendo awhile back and showed great intrest in entering the industry. One thing is for sure Apple can't successfully compete without some very big help! I can't see how their is even enough room for a fourth competitor let alone one with no internal studios to support the hardware with first party content!

In otherwords barely anybody even has the financial support they would require to enter the industry, let alone compete. If the biggest corporate giants can't enter how can any fourth competitor be expected to compete? 

I could see Apple entering the market, but not for a while. First they need to start developing games or buy one of the 3rd party developers so they have more knowledge about the industry. Then they can try to get third party support and release a console.

 edit: by the time I posted this JoelCool7 already said it.

apple can enter and convert their mac game developers (if there still is any...) and have them as first party then enter first next gen