Quote Originally Posted by Vivi22 View Post
I really doubt you'll see anyone else being stupid enough to try and get into the console business right now. As it stands, the big three just have too much market share, fanbase, and economic power in the market. The only reason Microsoft was even able to make a good solid go of it is that they're the richest company in the world. It isn't cheap to develop a new console, or set up manufacturing for it. I think most investors would be smart enough to realize that there's no room for a fourth console to come out of nowhere and compete in the market right now.
On one hand, I'm pretty inclined to agree. It would be too risky for anybody else to enter it. The whole random consoles being made by everybody thing is most likely dead forever. But then again...

Quote Originally Posted by Odaisé Gaelach View Post
Yeah, I think that it could happen. I mean, imagine asking someone in 1991 if there would ever be another games company to compete against Nintendo with the SNES and Sega with the Mega Drive.

Now imagine telling them that, in five years time, Sony would have a very popular games console out. And in ten years time, Sega would give up making consoles completely.

Anything can happen.
This is also true, nobody could have foreseen that Sony would bust in and own business. They really were not associated with games at all before, and now Sony and games go hand in hand. It's tricky to predict sometimes... But they were already an electronics company, and still are, and a huge company before they entered the race, so... Who knows anymore.

As for whether or not consoles will be replaced by something like handhelds; I doubt it. I personally don't like playing handhelds. I don't travel enough for it to be worth having for long trips, and when I do travel, I'm usually doing the driving so they're useless to me, and if I'm at home, I'd rather play on my 27" TV with surround sound. Handhelds are huge business, but a replacement for consoles they are not.
This is how I feel about handhelds as well, but I still think it's a possibility. Especially with wireless capabilities growing and growing. I could easily see a handheld that can be programmed to appear on certain televisions when it is close enough, making it both your portable device and console at home.

They were already talking about making the next-gen systems entirely wireless, it just didn't happen. It will with the next probably, and then a smaller gaming device like the DS that appears on your television would be the next logical step to me. Nintendo has kind of proven that it's not really about graphical power anymore, as long as it's kinda pretty that seems to be good enough for most, so making these huge consoles like they are now is becoming unnecessary for profit.