When Sony originally announced that the PS3 would have a 10 year life cycle we collectively scoffed and stated that it’s pretty much impossible for a piece of gaming hardware to really last 10 years without it becoming obsolete.
Well we may have been wrong as the PS3 was designed to easily outlast the Xbox 360 and now Microsoft are stating that the Xbox 360 hasn’t even reached the midway point of it’s lifecycle… with this year being it’s 5 year anniversary on the market.
According to David Hufford from Microsoft
“The Xbox 360 was designed for a long life, and I don’t even know if we’re at the midpoint yetâ€
My initial projections were that we would be talking about the impending PS4 and Xbox 720 this year with a release coming towards the end of 2011, but with not a single reputable rumour about either of the successors I think it’s safe to say that neither Sony nor Microsoft are planning on replacing the consoles in the next 2 to 3 years now and are rather both going to revitalise them with motion controllers in 2010.
Sony in particular has a lot of R&D debt that they need to claw back and as such they will be happy to extend this generation for as long as they possibly can while Microsoft are currently happy to prove that their entertainment division can be self sufficient and even bring in a healthy profit.
The other dark horse is Nintendo who have recently spoken about creating a successor to the incredibly popular Wii which will include better graphics and an improved motion sensing and possibly body sensing capabilities.
However until the Wii’s sales actually start sliding I highly doubt they will be in any rush to replace it and even when they do I expect it to be more off an improvement with full backwards capability rather than a full revision.
Source: VG247
Last Updated: January 13, 2010
easy
January 13, 2010 at 14:25
first to market might too much of temptation for one of them i fear.