Wait, what!? This has to be a joke post, right? Where are the cameras?
i think there are two ways to look at the ps4.
1. the successor to the ps3. the successor to the ps3 is doing super great right now. for seriously. the successor to the ps3 is beating the competition in almost every single region, selling a lot of software, and turning a profit. the successor to the ps3 looks like it will finish a clear first place at the end of the generation. the successor to the ps3 may equal or exceed the ps3's sales in less time, especially since it seems many developers are circling the wagons around it, unlike the ps3 where they flocked to other platforms.
2. the market leader. the market leader is doing relatively well to previous market leaders from a head-on comparison. month-to-month, week-to-week, it is not performing like previous market leaders. sales are consistently at a level that are more at home on second place consoles.
the ps4 can both be a success relative to the ps3
and and ill omen for the rest of the industry. it can be both a good thing for sony, and spell dire times for many other companies if they are going to come up short.
i give the ps4 five years because it's a fairly nice number. i suppose i should give it six based on sony's tendency to get a new platform out every six to seven years. but in that time, what is going to change? we already see a new major kind of game style emerging on these new consoles, where players are forced to play additional fees to play massive multiplayer online versions of third-person shooters, racing games, first-person shooters, and third-person action games (thank you blessed one michel ancel). in five years the idea of inexpensive accessible gameplay was introduced to a public at large, popularized on traditional gaming devices, and then exploded even larger on traditionally nongaming devices. what kind of effect will it have when enthusiasts are conditioned to paying for games as a service while companies like wb, ea, square enix, and sony roll out service-based platforms (in addition to existing ones like steam, gog, and desura)? how willing are they now to buy into such platforms, and how willing will they be in three years? in five years? what sort of effect will that have on the traditional market?