Of course.
But if Playstation 4 becomes Sega Saturn 2.0/Dreamcast 2.0/Playstation 2.0 that would be insane. Those consoles were the most hardcore of the hardcore IMO.
1. What Playstation are you referring to with "Playstation 2.0" that was the most hardcore of the hardcore?
2. The failures of the Saturn and Dreamcast were due to a heavy focus on Sega's core gamer and only Sega's core gamer. That is entirely different from focusing on core gamers as a whole.
Common sense? The PS3 isn't a hardcore console now. I love watching MLB and blu-rays on mine. I'm considering buying my cousin Sony's marque PS3 2012 release, wonderbook.
And? How does that change Sony's focus over the last several years on delivering core gamer experiences?
MLB costs them nothing, its an MLB developed app. Blu-Ray was trojan horsed into the box, sure, but its a zero cost long term investment for them.
Over the course of this generation Sony has put more and more focus on delivering exclusive core gamer experiences. The massive expansion of their first party points to this. Since the beginning of this generation they've had the following first party changes:
1. Naughty Dog started out barely big enough to make one AAA game, they're now big enough to make two simultaneously.
2. Guerrilla was originally a two studio team, when bought by Sony they were effectively culled down to a one studio team. They're now back to a two studio team again plus they oversee Sony Cambridge, now renamed Guerrilla Cambridge.
3. Media Molecule has grown large enough so that they're apparently working on Tearaway for Vita along with another undisclosed product.
4. They purchased Sucker Punch!, who had been an independent studio making Sony IPs, now a full subsidiary.
5. Biggest of all, Sony Santa Monica has gone from being a single IP studio making God of War games to a massive first party collective that can work on one or more IPs entirely on it's own while assisting as many as a half dozen different smaller devs simultaneously and providing technical support to 3rd parties.
Pretty much all of these studios that Sony has grown rapidly over the PS3's life focus on core gamer experiences in one form or another. None are working on Move, EyeToy, or Wonderbook only applications. Sony has an entire second tier of developers working on that, while still rapidly growing their core gamer focused first party offerings.
That is the difference here. Sony is trying some casual oriented devices but aren't betting the farm on it. Instead they're betting on core gamers still being core gamers and still wanting to play the next generation of those experiences.
MS over the course of the Xbox 360 has dramatically reduced the number of core gamer oriented first party studios they employ, has failed to develop any new significant first party core gamer IPs this generation, and has put progressively more and more support behind Kinect and non-gaming media. They're now apparently trying to scale up first party development again to start the new generation, with unproven teams and unknown IPs.
I wouldn't say it's too hard to pick which of these studios is focused on the core gamer more than the other without even digging into the hardware speculation. So when leaks and rumors about the hardware further support this apparent divide it isn't really all that surprising, now is it?