Leondexter said:
The PS3 is not the PS1, and it's definitely not the PS2. Those systems had long cycles because they were market leaders. The NES and SNES had similar long support cycles, or even longer. If the PS3 lasts 10 years, it'll be the first and only non-market leader to do so. The Genesis is probably the current record holder, and it only held out a couple of weak years while the Saturn struggled. The N64 was dead slightly before the Gamecube launched, the Gamecube was dead months before the Wii arrived, and the Xbox was killed outright before the 360 hit stores. That's what happens to also-ran systems, which the PS3 most certainly is.
All that said, this gen has broken the mold in several ways, and the transition to the next gen looks like it could be an odd one as well. So who knows. But I wouldn't put money on the PS3 seeing support for that long, if I were you.
I mostly agree, but as you at the end, this gen has broken the mold. The current market leader hasn't dominated among hardcore gamers, and may still see a serious drop-off in sales. There's no guarantee that a Wii 2/HD, whenever it may come, would be a huge boon to Nintendo, as they risk dividing their user base to come out with a product that isn't likely to appeal to the casual market that has been Nintendo's bread and butter.
Microsoft definitely doesn't want to jump-start the next gen this time around, as they're making money on the hardware now and are seem much more likely to reload with a slim 360 bundled with Natal. Developers are likely no more thrilled to start developing for a new platform after spending so much to develop current gen engines.
Sony's situation is the most precarious -- they seem likely to see the most sales growth from here, but Cell has been significantly more expensive to produce, and both Cell & RSX have proven more difficult to cost-reduce than they ever expected.
Sony may actually have the best incentives to jump-start the next gen -- perhaps giving them an opportunity to do what they managed with the PS2 by beating MS & Nintendo to that generation. They could possibly bundle it with both Move & a traditional dual-analog controller, thus ensuring 100% of the install base would be able to use motion control. More importantly, they could switch away from the Cell architecture sooner, getting started with hardware that can see meaningful cost reduction & get new game engines to tailor to PS4 hardware.
The biggest downside to this analysis is that Microsoft may choose to challenge them to keep the PS4 from getting a head start -- which would defeat the chief point for doing it and would just end up hurting the profits of both companies.
There's my half-assed analysis.
