It will never cross their minds.

nope and why do you asking that?
it's like you would know the obvious.

If you honestly think Sony is just going to up and pull an Eric Cartman ("Screw you guys, we're going home!"), then you don't understand a thing about Sony's long-term strategy, or company history. The games are a given, almost to the point of being an afterthought. Sony's investment will pay off long term in downloadable movie rentals, BluRay sales, and microtransactions over the PSN.

Sony's biggest competitors this gen are not Microsoft or Nintendo, they're Netflix and Apple. Losing the DLC battle to Netflix and Apple will cost Sony tens of billions of dollars in future potential revenue streams.

Let me put it this way: Sony can lose a console war to Microsoft and/or Nintendo and keep chuggin' along. If Sony ever loses relevence as a preeminent consumer electronics company, they're done. A few hundred million Xboxes and Wiis aren't a problem. I few hundred million iPhones, iPods, and cheap Korean made flat panel TVs are.

I read somewhere back when Sony was announcing their fiscal year earnings and loss reports, that they wanted to place less emphasis on hardware and more on software in the comming years. That could mean they have no intentions of releasing another console for quite sometime, but that doesn't mean they will drop out of the gamming market. Games are profitable and as stated there is a recession which also crippled sales during the SNES/Genesis era for Nintendo. The NES sold 61 million in the generation before, but the SNES sold 49 million in the subsequent era due partially to the recession of the early 90's.

As I have stated before, there are some striking similarities between this area and the early 90's. There's a recession, stiff competition, and the PS3 has a heavier price point. The good news is, that it is selling fine week over week, so I don't think they are in any real danger of going away. 50 million units for the PSP and 22 million for the PS3 (puts them 8-9 million behind M$) are fairly good numbers for where they are at in this life cycle. The doomsayers call this lack lust and it certainly isn't what the PS2 was doing at this time, but there also not bad numbers and the system is steadily growing. Remember the tale of the Tortise and the Hare...slow and steady will determine this generation and the PS3 is following that philosophy.

I don't think new consoles will be comming from any company for awhile yet and there is no indication that it is necessary to ensure growth for either of the big 3. The current gen still has lots to offer and with a rough economy expect the life cycle of the systems to increase.

No of course not. They bought a plenty of good developers such as Naughty Dog Guerilla etc. They don't let win Microsoft easily. Plus it's too early to talk about this because this gen is not over yet.

And your point about the PS3 and PSP sales that are not increasing is nonsense because of the price is very high of PS3 and PSP is heavily pirated.

Doubt it. Sony has the means to fail and try at least one more time, the same to MS.

My opinion: This thread is utter FAIL

No. Another one like this might do the trick though.

No.

No