I think there will be a PS4, but the better question is when, and how much?  A lot of this depends on the PS3 itself.  If it continues to struggle throughout its lifetime, then the PS4 will need some early success to regain third party support(similiar to what Nintendo is going through with the Wii now).  If it starts picking up in sales down the line to become the market leader or at least hold a significant amount of the market share, then it'll show the PS4 can have a slow start and still turn out successful well.

The PS3 may or may not last 10 years, but it's very doubtful that if Sony's gonna stay in the console business that they'll skip a generation.  This means the PS4 will likely launch in 5 or 6 years.  I would think Sony would be making a profit on a sub $200 PS3 by then and the difference in price between the two consoles will likely be around $200.  If the PS4 uses Cell, Blu-Ray, a GPU based off the RSX(which would help with BC if they decide to push it again) then Sony may actually make a profit off each console sold at launch for once.

I think a $300-$400 launch in 2011-2013 is likely.

Well, if the Wii is just a repackaged GameCube as Sony fans like to point out, then I guess I can call the 80 gig and 40 gig consoles the PS4 and PS5.

Yes, there will be. Even if the PS3 is a flop (which it isn't yet, whatever you might think).

One failure has never driven an established hardware company out of the running, and it certainly isn't going to happen with Sony, with the wild success of the PS2 still fresh in their minds. The brand still has value, greatly diminished though it is now.

Whether the PS4 will be the absolute trainwreck of design and marketing the PS3 was is another question.

Remember, Nintendo was actually turning a profit (AFAIK) on the Gamecube unlike Sony and the PS3.

Even in the loser's circle, Nintendo's boat still floats. Sony's is firmly sinking. They need to do some quick leak plugging and I don't think their new 40Gb model will do it.

Off course there will be a PS4.

But what we see now is that Sony was taken by surpise:
Both competitors ( MS and Nintendo ) are doing well because of their advantages:
The Wii is at a low price-level and appealing to a different ( and bigger than expected) player-base, the XBox had a year advantage and an easier to program architecture.

Don't forget that the PS3 is a powerful machine, but Sony's biggest mistake was their price.
If it was $400 from the beginning, it would already be success at this moment, in spite of the larger xbox line-up of games.

I don't believe the PS2 had such powerful competitors, so this console war is not at all comparable with previous console wars.

But I think Sony learned a lot already from the PS3 and the competition, and when the PS4 will come in sight, they will have the benefit of an evolved Cell ( Cell 2 ? ) and BR technology ( 100 GB should be possible by then ).

If they are able to sell a more powerful console for the price of about $300/ E300 and an improved SDK to make it easier for 3rd party studios to design and develop games ( design for PS4 and compile for PS3 too) , it will be a lot harder for both Nintendo and MS to compete.

But that's all in the long distance future, let's see how the PS3 and others will do in the coming 52 weeks ;)

I sort of agree with you about why Sony is in the position they're in with the PS3, although I think the core of their problems is they didn't realize how they put their competition at a serious disadvantage in the previous two generations. Sony only ever faced weak competiton from Sega early in their previous system's lives, and by the time the stronger competition from Nintendo and Microsoft appeared Sony already had an established userbase and quality library.

Sony didn't produce the correct system at the right price to face a re-energized Nintendo (who was a hot brand with the success of the DS) and an established product from Microsoft.

So its perfectly justified to get excited and claim premature dominance of the gaming generation everytime something good is announced for the PS3, but the second anytime something bad happens to it we have to remind ourselves its only its first year? Well isn't that convenient for the Sony supporters.

Oh and before I forget... Hi, Ckmlb.

Dodece said:
You seem to forget a lot of things Harvey like the fact that you used to have an account here, and got banned from this site. Hus it isn't going to work you already slipped up on two posts. No matter how you pretend to be even handed your lunacy slips out between the seems.

This is not the first time i've been accused of being someone else on this site. I am not ckmlb. This pisses me off. It seems that I can't post anything remotely good about Sony without someone saying i'm Hus or ckmlb. Damn. In my paragraph did I say anything about the PS3 being "dominance"? No, so go back, READ it, then comment on it.

Alia iacta est ???

@ Rol: You are right it would take a massive blow to take out nintendo... bigger than what Sega went through... still are you sure they wouldn´t cut their loses and still make games ??? Maybe you are right and they would eather do all or nothing...     

Regardless if there will be a PS4, I see Microsoft releasing their next console first.
And I think Sony will let them. The Xbox 720 will be the next gen, but third parties will still make games work on both systems, even though the PS3 will most likely have the weaker architecture by then. No one will be able to tell a difference between the stronger consoles, and the weaker consoles games- just like how it is now.
So sad really.
IMO, it would be cool if every third party dev was bought by one of the big 3. Every game would be a console exclusive. Every game would play to the systems strengths
Everyone would want all 3 consoles. The market would witness a new level of competition, and productivity.