360 to match PS3's 10-year lifecycle, says Kim

Shane Kim, Microsoft's corporate VP in charge of strategy and business for Interactive Entertainment, was unsurprisingly upbeat about his company's performance at E3 this year, and revealed that Microsoft was working on a ten-year lifecycle for the Xbox 360 - vocalising for the first time a similar strategy to Sony's long-held plans.

Kim, talking to Venturebeat, explained that Microsoft saw motion control system Project Natal as something that would fit mid-cycle into the console's lifetime.

"We firmly believe that the Xbox 360 has a life cycle through 2015 (ten years after the launch)," he said. "Project Natal is a great innovation. It will work with every Xbox 360 sold.

"It's not about pushing more pixels on the screen," he said, referring specifically to Natal, "It's about how to break down barriers that stop people from playing games."

And when asked who he felt performed best out of the three platform holders in their respective press conferences, he was clear:

"I think we won," he said. "It's not just me saying that. It's pretty universal. We had something very special yesterday, starting with the games portfolio.

"We had a lot of content for a normal E3 briefing. But Project Natal doesn't come along every year, and it is very difficult to match."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...cycle-says-kim