PS always gets new colours no matter where it is

I agree with this assessment, except I think the hard drive will still be standard.  With some third parties switching to PS3 as the lead platform, it could work in their advantage to keep the cell.  Also, developers have spent lots of money investing in cell dev.  It will probably sell exactly at break-even point, so software can deliver the profit.

Also, I see Sony focusing on getting a good initial line-up of games that will grab people immediately.  They don't want the "no games" stigma that they still have to fight to this day, even with a great line-up.  They will probably have a shooter done by Insomniac, a LBP-like game done by MM, a super casual game, and a jRPG probably done by Level 5.

If the price of BD recorders comes down in price, I can definitely see that being included to capture more of the Japanese audience that want to record HD content.  BD recorders are taking off in a big way and you can get BD-R discs for $2-$3 each here.

Here is what SONY needs for PS4:

- CELL 2.0 -> 2x PPE, 16x SPE (2x PPE and 12x SPE avalible to devs.) @ 5.4Ghz
- New GPU Semi-high end GPU for the year PS4 launches.
- 6gb of RAM - 2gb for CPU, 4gb for video. (XDR2 or GDDR5)
- 8x or 12x blu-ray drive (possibly 16x if its available)
- 250gb HDD standard.

- Full BC with PS1 games.
- Full BC with PS3 games.
- BC with as many PS2 games as possible(hopefully 99%)
- Good launch line-up. Tell devlopers about PS4 and send out dev. kits well in advance, also have plenty of AAA first party games lined up for year 1.
- Price at $399
- Only offer 1 model. Multiple models just confuses customers and complicates developed.

Aprisaiden like the ideas but I see you put full BC for ps1 and 3 games, but why only 99 percent PS2 bit random isnt it?

@Aprisaiden and others:
2 PPE general purpose cores would be well exploited even now, in a few years 4 PPE cores could be a more far-sighted project.
And at least 4GB main RAM to avoid the current situation where all other would be OK, but PS3 is prevented from becoming a new widespread home PC by too little unexpandable RAM (other than only one PPE gp core, right now every modern OS does very well with a dual-core).
About PS2 BC, a full one should be very cheap by the date PS4 will be released.

I hope something like this too :p would be awesome.

I feel from current threads that a new PS4 thread could materialize, so why not refreshing this old one and recycling precious bits almost new?  

I'd like to correct and integrate my past post too:

Motion control and not only "me too like wii" ways to use it will be necessary. And at least one model under $300 (not $350) by its 2nd Xmas.

Ok, just a simple question: Who would develop this processor?

Let's face it the last cell was based on the interests of 3 companies, but now they have their architectures.

IBM doesn't need a high power PPU, for their workflow the original PPU would probably be sufficient for 12 SPE, but such a system wouldn't make the Playstation 4 any faster.  In fact for them the memoray performance and the local memory sizes of the SPEs are much more critical issues, than the PPU, which is used in most cases as a simple dispatcher, while SPEs represent the number of nodes the chip offers.

Toshiba doesn't even need a general CPU for their workflow, instead they use the SPUs as a kind of SuperPipeline. Both companies use the archicture as it was intended.

The Big idea behind the Cell were the SPUs, but game developers have serious problems to use them in a very effective manner. Instead the next generation of GPUs offer parts of their shaders as a kind of low scale SPUs which would make the SPUs redundant! It might sound a bit exagerated but apple already uses their GPUs  as coprocessors and Microsoft goes this way too. The reason is simple. SPUs are stream based processors as each of the shaders in a GPU. But in many cases the application doesn't need all these shaders. The big difference: you do not need a third processor architecture, your graphics guys can do this. You do not need additional hardware, you only use otherwise not needed reserves. For Toshiba and IBM this track is not really interesting, because their systems do not need/use high end GPUs.

As I See it Sony only has the options to stay on the Cell track, pay for the necessary changes and developments and anger the developers that can't integrate the SPUs in their general models, or they will have to switch to a normal multi core and GPU architecture, which is much cheaper due to the fact that these systems will be designed anyway, but it will be nearly impossible to sustain exclussive titles (competitors use more or less the same architecture).

The first way would probably be doomed, due to the higher costs and a lower effective power for game developers, while the second way would mean that the PS4 would no longer be compatible to the PS-3 but it would prabaly be much cheaper and even faster.

The PS4 will bring Sony back up to the top, I think we all know they have learned from their mistakes.

YES!