The Japanese company is barely handling the PS3 right now, as the next-gen gaming device tries to compete with the rival consoles, Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360. Sony's "PS3 failure" as many have named the whole phenomenon surrounding the console's poor sales, might make the company consider pulling back from the gaming device industry.

Nikkei Financial Daily recently mentioned that Sony intends to sell its manufacturing facilities to Toshiba, especially those used to produce Cell processors. Of course, the company's representatives denied everything, but one thing is for sure: Sony won't invest in Research & Development as much as they did till now, so we won't see a PS4 in the following years.

If a company decides to cut the research and sell its manufacturing lines while the competition is doing great, that can only mean one thing: Sony wants to bail out of the industry, since it hasn't been too prolific lately. Will one of the greatest names of the gaming universe turn into the new Sega and quit producing hardware, relying instead on gaming software?

I hope that these grim predictions won't come true as Sony PlayStation is one of the best brands in the world and it would be a shame to see such a famous franchise disappearing. What about God of War? What about the PlayStation-only Final Fantasy? What about the wonderful 12-year old gaming experiences provided by Sony? We could blame this decay of Sony's gaming department on the PS3, but I guess that a huge PSP Slim success could put the company back in business.

However, I'm surprised to see that the PSP and PSP Slim are not selling as well as I would have expected, being once again surpassed by the acclaimed Nintendo DS and GameBoy Advance. Will the next next-gen console be a Toshiba PS4? The future will provide us the answer.