Yeah... if Sony goes bankrupt. Or if the human race dies out. I can't really think of a scenario where they don't make a new console.

It's so simple, they won't ever again release a console at a so huge initial loss and so expensive, I don't think they'll follow completely the Nintendo way with HW sold at more than cost since the beginning, but they'll be more prudent anyway. A little ambition about specs compared to competition will remain, to allow the console to have a longer life, as it's a part of Sony model that showed to work quite nicely, simply this time they went too far and above all they completely botched the launch, as launching PS3 simultaneously WW and without shortages would have meant a smaller gap from XB360 and reaching some months before the production volume necessary to allow every price cut, maybe making possible to price it at $350 last XMas. Staggered release and shortages in the early life, just when novelty excitement allowed it to partially counter the negative effect of its high price, damaged PS3 a lot, with negative effects dragging on even in the mid term, Sony must be 100% sure it won't be so clumsy ever again... Well, considering they were almost as clumsy with LBP launch, I'm quite pessimist about this, they'll survive as after a while things start going better, but it looks like clumsiness in these issues is written in their DNA and so, if they are lucky, they must content themselves to compete for second place for a long time, at least until Nintendo forgets its past mistakes and becomes arrogant again.

S.T.A.G.E - Do you or do you not think PS3 will be Sony's last console?

No....I stated that the second digital downloads go big, Sony will drop out of the gaming race, because they cant use it as extra sales in on format war against Panasonic, Samsung and the other electronics competition. Blu Ray is a group effort, but still it wouldn't have survived without the gaming industry. Sony will definitely drop out if they cannot control a hard format which they sorely need to make profit off of. This could be two gens from now. Who knows?

playstation is not going anywhere, ps1, ps2, had changed console gaming, if it was not for sony, we would not be where we are, so the ps3 has not sold as much as the media would like , still over 20 million units in 2 years, it is the best system, everyone will see in 2009 and on, there was 2 other good systems, out against ps3 in a bad economic time, microsoft has still 30 percent fail rate on there 360, that is absolute crap, blueray will be used more and more on games, the ps3 out of box is so superior to 360 in every way, the media has to have somthing to talk about, ps3 is not going anywhere, i have a family member at sony corp in texas, its JUST STARTING  sit back relax watch the show,  SONY WILL BE ONTOP!!!!!!

Ok, so generally speaking, you think that Sony is currently on the path to dropping out of the console race? This does not necessarily have to happen in the next generation, but it could. Fair enough. I disagree but its fair.

How did the PS1 change gaming? There were systems with CD format systems way before the PS1 came out. Sony only controlled the third party support. They were the first brand to have so much power, because of the extremely large library and variety of games they acquired from devs. As yourself how Microsoft became relevant competition for Sony. They took the third parties away from them. Nothing more...nothing less.

Did I say it was next generation? I said probably two generations. As I said, if Sony cannot control their format because there is demand for digital downloads, they'll drop out. Consoles totally reliant on digital downloads will exist a little later. Hard formats will never be the future.

@ S.T.A.G.E.

I think that Sony changed the gaming industry, not through the technology of the PS1, but how it changed the perception of what games are.

SNES captured the kids, and defined video games as toys. Bill O'Reilley did a story on it smiling and happy about it.

Sony came and made it a system that's cool, and ok for young adults to play and not just pre-pubsecents.

Now Wii is capturing the parents themselves, along with the elderly.

Sega had the teen and adult card far before Playstation. Sony had the power, hence why more people could take notice. Sony did arcade and console gaming.