My money is on holiday 2010 for Microsoft, 2011 or early 2012 for Sony, and late 2011 or 2012 for Nintendo.

Should be a fairly long generation. By this point last gen (June 2002) all three machines were under $200 already. Wii may be low tech compared to PS3 and 360 but Nintendo knows how to ride a money machine, so it wouldn't surprise me if 360 ends up cheaper than Wii at some point...of course Gamecube was cheapest its entire lifetime and it was still third.

Finally decided?  They did it once when Nvidia forced them into a corner. 

Sony is "correct on the expenses it would cost?"  Financially speaking, Sony's gaming division is the Microsoft E & D division of last generation.  Have they completely eradicated all PSX and PS2 profits yet?  They must be getting close.

Nintendo is the only company thats had a near to flawless economic model this generation.  Sony's business model this generation isn't a target anyone is trying to hit.

If that happesn, 2010 v 2013, then Microsoft will either win by a landslide or be crushed. Dreamcast did that, and by the time the others came out it appeared inferior and hadn't established a big enough lead and was killed. The Genesis however established and unshakeable lead against the SNES that was only broken thanks to Nintendo's stellar software and advertising and the fact that Sega released the CD and 32X, alienating part of its base. I think Microsft would get crushed if they had a 3 year head start personally...

i think the next console to be released ar 2011

me and Naz had a discussion on this like a week ago. Now a days a minor increase in performace costs a massive amount of money so without profit of some form from a previous expense its pointless. Sony will wait till they earn profit off the PS3 that releasing the PS4 is financially fessible. This is the brilliance behind Sony's 10 year plan. The PS1 was the profit behind the PS2, the PS2 the profit behind the PS3, the PS3 will be for the PS4, and so on.

You might not want to admit this but the PS3 should be really close to being profitable for Sony. With all the internal hardware shrinkages they are cutting costs every way the can. It would be shocking if they dont make a profit by next fiscal.

Nintendo's main reason why they make a profit out of the box is because they buy hardware from other companies, IBM (not 100% sure) and ATI for the GC and Wii. And they never go for the high end products but rather the cheaper hardware available. They also sell their consoles for a profit out of the gate. The Wii probably costs them about $170 if not less by now to manufacture so they are making a huge profit margin because they like to play it safe with their hardware. The Wii could have been another GC this generation and Nintendo would still have been king of profit.

good, i'm sick of buying new consoles every year anyway.

agreed.... except if we see a big jump between a console and a multimedia box for next gen.... I still believe at some point we will have a clear transition... the question is when will it be... the next gen or even later... and who will take the leap first... like said the OP there is a possibility to really differenciate yourself on the videogamin market now.. I think that's the most important part of the article... and we will see that a all lot more in the future and not only on that market but globaly.... like I say now "SHIFT HAPPENS"

A few flaws in your logic:

1. Sony will only stick to the "10 year plan" if it keeps working for them. If the PS3 stalls at some point and they see themselves being left behind by a new Xbox or Wii, you can bet they'll throw that plan out the window and adopt a new strategy. It's easy to be smug and claim that your strategy is superior to others when you're at the top of the hill. We'll see how Sony reacts when they hit the end of this generation and realize they're suddenly looking up a mighty big hill topped by Nintendo and MS is still nipping at their heels.

2. Sure, Sony financed the PS2 with the PS1, the PS3 with the PS2, etc. but they've lost a bundle on the PS3 already. Enough to completely wipe out all their PS2 profits and they're still losing money. On top of that, they're not dominating the market this time and won't have the luxury of massive software sales to keep their profits high. In short, it's quite possible that Sony won't even be at the breakeven point at the end of year five, when they need to be thinking of releasing another console.

Meaning that next generation, there will be no cash cow to support the PS4. It will have to survive on its own merits.

Using Sony's past actions as industry leader to create a model for the PS3 is folly. They're no longer the market leader and the PS3 has lost far more money than any of their previous consoles. Apple, meet orange. 1996-2005 no longer apply to Sony. It's a vastly different ballgame.

Please don't pretend the current enormous losses are part of Sony's plan for the PS3.  The "10 year plan" you refer too is a marketing gimmick more than anything else.  If you mean something similar to the 8/9 year plan the PS2 has had, allow me to enlighten you as too how that plan works:

Price advantage + Third party exclusives + Momentum = Long-term sustainability and sales.

The PS3 currently lacks all three of the ingredients necessary for the PS2 to maintain the long tail that it has.  One of them isn't enough, two of them isn't enough, you need all three.

Even if the PS3 is close to being cost-neutral, Sony has already sunk billions of dollars into a massive hole.  They won't have as long to fill that hole as they did with the PS2, because the PS3 doesn't have the same ingredients of success the PS2 does.  As for your ridiculous "profit behind the profit" model?  What was the profit behind the PS1?  If Sony plans to keep pushing technological boundaries, how many billions of dollars do they have to make before the end of this generation to overcome their massive losses and make the amount necessary to justify that kind of PS4?

Your last paragraph is largely irrelevant.  It doesn't matter why Sony chose the model they did, it only matters that its not working.  A "profit behind the profit" model doesn't work as well as other models on a good day.  But when your not a significant market leader?  It just plain fails.  The PS3 won't have a tail nearly as strong as the PS2.  It doesn't have the price advantage or exclusive third party support necessary to survive the launch of the Xbox 3 and Wii 2 NEARLY as long as the PS2 did the Xbox 2 and Wii 1.  And what little time it does survive it wont be with the PS2's strong sales.

All that remains of Sony's 10 year plan is a desperate marketing gimmick.

This is the part I find extremly amusing about this generation. All 3 manufacturers go to IBM with a roadmap for what they want devloped as far as a CPU goes for their console. They all end up getting either a close to off the shelf PPC chip(wii) Or a highly modified PPC chip design (MS&Sony). If Sony would have gone ATI instead of Nvida for a GPU all the consoles Chips would have been developed entirely by the same companys.

So I guess its fair to say Apple is the True winner of the Console "War".Were all playing MAC's shame on us.