I think they will stick with blu-ray, but more as a media centre and BC... the cream of gaming lies within non-spinable media, no skip, no scratch. good old memory sticks..

as soon as they figure out the DRM issue 

@Fazz, I'm not so sure that they'll have the least powerful system :P I think they'll have the most powerful system again, but they'll also have one of the cheapest, and since it would be familiar technology and have much more advanced dev kits by that point, it will be pretty cheap to develop for as well. I think Sony's going to attempt a trifecta of awesome next generation :)

- With regard to the Cell, it's not that hard to develop for compared to for example the PS2. But it can be difficult to port badly designed legacy code. Building engines from scratch or porting well designed multi-threaded legacy code shouldn't be much of an issue.

Any work done now with regard to redesign will benefit a PS4's potential Cell follow up chip at higher clock and with more onchip processors.

- I agree it will be a Blu-Ray drive, probably faster.

- IMO the GPU actually makes things a lot easier for developers. At some things the RSX is more powerful and/or suitable and other stuff the Cell. Without RSX the PS3 would be really hard to port legacy stuff to, the RSX is designed so it can potentially being assisted by the Cell.

Better Cell, better specced GPU, more and faster RAM and more system bandwidth are the obvious tech improvements for a PS4, I hope they will innovate with something like virtual reality.

PS1 and PS2 software emulator should be done for PS3 and PS4, keeping the architecture similar could allow for native PS3 games support (for example through fine tuned "degrader" software to make sure everything runs as intended).

IMO a PS4 is a very long way off.

Sounds like you want another generic console which has been proven to sell less than innovative consoles this generation. I don't think both Sony and Microsoft would be stupid enough to make graphical powerhouses to compete and get nowhere again. I'd bet on Sony doing something different and cheaper next time.

I disagree, and agree with the OP. The CELL is not hard to develop for. In fact it’s very easy. What is hard about it is you have to think, and develop, in a way you never have before. That’s the hard part. Once that’s accomplished this gen, it’s just more of the same next gen.  As people learn to distribute code, going from 1 CELL to 2-3 CELLS is a very basic task. In distributed development, you come from the philosophy that the PPC in the CELL is nothing but a message passer, and you offload all of the work to the SPU’s. So if there are 6-12-18 spu’s, the design of your code stays the same, you just have more resources to work with.

It scales incredibly well.

Also, the PS3 does not have the best video card this gen, the 360 does. I expect the next GPU to be something from NVIDIA or ATI(AMD) again, and I expect the system to have a lot more ram.

@Mike, of course they'll have a GPU :P A much nicer one at that I think. I also agree that the PS4 is at LEAST 3 years away, I'm just saying with the tools they ALREADY HAVE at they're disposal, I think they could launch a cheap PS4 whenever they need to.

 Not quite, what I'm saying, is that Sony can put out a "generic powerhouse" for almost no additional cost, the components used this generation scale seemingly perfectly, and for what those components will cost at the end of this generation is almost a joke :P The way they set up the PS3 seems to me like they can put out a PS4 in 3 years time which could be infinitely more powerful for possibly less than what it takes them to produce a PS3 now. Thats what I think they meant when they said the next generation is time for innovation, the tools are already in place, and boy will they be cheap, all they have to do now is focus on uniqueness. 

 Thats exactly what I was thinking Mrmafoo :D I think cell technology in terms of writing code works regardlessly of how many SPU's your using. 

@ Shameless

I would like Sony to continue to compete within the higher end of the market. By the time a PS4 hits the market a very cheap slimline PS3 could still be available for the low end market.

IMO excellent hardware performance does not stand in the way of innovations, actually highly specced hardware would widen options.

It's not even proven that the Wii will continue to outsell the PS3 for the long run, for the first couple of years I expected this to happen, but for the long run I don't. A PS4 similar in architecture as to the PS3 will not have to deal with the issues developers are facing currently. Isomniac thinks bad code design won't last this generation and this will benefit other multi-core / multi-processors systems like PCs as well.

There will always be hardcore gamers who want the most impressive demanding games the generation of consoles has to offer.

 I don't think it's in Sony's blood to push something that won't sell they're other hardware ;) I have no doubt in my mind the next Playstation will be quite the showpiece, just I have a feeling it won't have that showpiece pricetag :P

First of all I don't imagine a playstation 4 but a playstation...something like if there was a trilogy ... I also imagine than the blu ray disc will still be the standard. For the technicals stuff, I don't care about that, that's too complicated for me! I hope a big hard drive, something like 400-500 Go.

But the most important think would be an alliance between microsoft and sony for a "playstation box!" THAT would ben awesome!