Wow.. Think about this... Why don't you try selling your heart. >_

I know governments have been throwing billions around like candy lately... but they're franchises combined aren't even worth half a billion when you talk selling the titles.

The only franchise in my opinion that Sony has that's worth anything is Gran Turismo.

Uncharted's presence as a franchise is growing. I'm sure it's movie rights alone would be worth a cool $5 mill atleast.
The different franchises would be worth a lot because more can be done with them then just video games. God Of War anime movie, LBP toys for kids(something in the style of Mr. Potato head maybe), Ratchet and Clank cartoon tv show, Infamous Comic Books, and so on. Companies will pay a lot of money for name recognition and build in fanmanship. Obviously they are not worth Billions but the IPs alone could fetch up to 50 million for the top franchises. Hardly worthless like most people are claiming them to be.

Why would a company pay out millions when they can get a contract for free or a little cash. I mean anime is usually done at the franchise owners request. It is a large part of franchising. Infact companies like Nintendo and in VivaPinata's case the mother company approaches the third party and asks them to develope animation's, toys and TCG's.

Now of course Nintendo pulled out of all its contracts to do everything internally. But the point is who's going to pay for a liscense for an anime when the mother company usually flips the bill. I know with Wizards Of The Coast Nintendo paid them in royalties to produce the Pokemon Trading Card game. Then Nintendo terminated the liscense and really pissed Wizard off.

But the fact is Microsoft hired the animators to make Viva Pinata and now likely same situation for making the Halo anime. You also have UbiSoft working on building a film division and book publisher to bring us movies, books and possibly toys from their vast library. Long story short the liscenses are worth more to the mother company then they are to a third party.

Who is going to take a risk on an unproven franchise? Ratchet and Clank sells on consoles but who says it will be all that successful as a cartoon. LittleBigPlanet toys, sure you could make a minimal profit by releasing them but not the millions needed. Sony's franchises are only proven in the games industry. Sony would need to hire teams to make their movies, toys and books first to show they are succesful in mass markets before third parties would shell out millions for a liscense or a property.

Come to think of it, the properties as far as making movies, toys and games go are worth a crap load more to Sony then the competitors. Selling those under developed franchises for maybe 2 mill each (Movie liscenses, Toy Liscenses and Card Games) they would see alot more profit if they developed those products internally. If Sony's animation studios made Rathet and Jak cartoons and Sony's film division released a GodOfWar film they would make way more then if they sold the franchises to someone else!

I think nintendo is the one that might go 3rd party. I even think they is a high chance they only do handhelds next generation and become 3rd party publishers on home consoles.
why?

1)they have way bigger software R&D than hardware
2)They can create hardware and Internet servers and service as powerful and technology than competitor
3)They would the most influential and profitable third parties publishers with so many mainstream franchises
4) They are very small company, and the risk and investment the next generation will have will just be too big
(But they will for sure make handhelds, since the investment required for those aren't a big. So are the risk)

Surprisingly enough, Sony is the company that is most certain to be here next generation with consoles, even if some common folk cant see that.
Explanation:

1)Sony is a HARDWARE company, the biggest high-end electronics company in the world. And console is hardware.
2)They already have cell developed and shrunk, which they will use on the next console. Was always their plan to use cell because they could "glue" 4+ cells together due to its kind of architecture. They will save millions on manufacturing because of that, since they already have factory's doing. They only used cell architecture because of that, even if was unusual to developers. Since by 2012 all engines and developers will be used with multi-core processor, they will be able harvest the effort and sacrifice they did this generation with the expensive cell.

Most of those franchises you list are actually worth almost nothing, really. Which is a sad commentary on the shape of Sony, I guess.

The only two with true sales power worth are Gran Turismo and God of War, and frankly neither of those are even in a Halo's galaxy as system sellers..

It really is sad to see Sony fall so far.