The 5-Year Console Cycle Is Dead

[wraggster]

The Xbox 360 recently turned five years old, and with no known successor on the horizon for the 360, PlayStation 3 or Wii, Cnet reports on the death of the 5-year console cycle — one of the video game industry's most longstanding truisms. For example, the Nintendo Entertainment System came out in 1985, followed by the Super NES in 1991, the Nintendo 64 in 1996, the GameCube in 2001, and the Wii in 2006. But now, why should console makers upgrade their offerings? Consumers are still buying their machines by the hundreds of thousands each month, and ramped-up online initiatives are breathing new life into the systems. A lot of it has to do with the fact that with the current generation of consoles, each company found a way to maximize either the technology behind the devices, or the utility to a wide range of new gamers.

http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/11/29/2243208/The-5-Year-Console-Cycle-Is-Dead

[cozy]

Also they change the console to stop priates!!!

[mike_jmg]

Online Updates are the ones keeping the consoles alive, only God knows when this current cycle is going to end

[Solidus Snake]

The god thing is that we not forced to buy a new console after a few years that the console is on the market. The game companys can squeeze every bit of power out of the machine. Look to the PS2, so older the console, so better the games.

[Qmark]

The pragmatic truth is that dropping a $600 box into the currently crappy world economy would be a total disaster.