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valen200 said:
HappySqurriel said:

As has already been said, it depends on what you mean by "how long does each console have left on the market?"

I could be wrong but I expect that you will have Nintendo or Microsoft releasing a new console in 2011 or 2012, and the remaining manufacturers will release their next console the following year.

All three consoles have sold enough hardware that (as long as their next generation system is backwards compatible) I suspect there will still be games on store shelves for these systems until 2015 at the earliest; and the Wii might still have software in stores (mostly in bargain bins) for a few years after that.

While many people will probably disagree with me, I think that the PS3 has the greatest risk of rapidly declining hardware sales after the next generation of consoles is released. Unless the PS3 continues to see rapid large price reductions, the PS3 could still be a relatively expensive console which has less processing power, features and is simply “less cool” in comparison to the new consoles; and that makes the PS3 a difficult sell to a lot of consumers. Systems like the Playstation, PS2, Gameboy/Gameboy Color, and Gameboy Advance were able to see decent sales for several years after their successor was released in a large part because they were such cost-effective gaming; many of these systems could be bought for $100 (or less) and you could pick up a massive collection of games (both new and used) for $5 to $20 a piece.

Well with the Xbox to 360 transition Microsoft just quit making the system to encourage upgradeing. Now this gen they have performed much  better overall, so maybe they won't try something similar but I do think it is possible Microsfot might try to force an upgrade again by stopping the 360 production. I could see the 360 thriving like the Ps2 at 100 dollars for several years, if microsoft felt inclinded to do so.

otherwise I agree with what you said.

 

Ps2s are still on the shelf after all this time. $100 dollar systems with a good library can fair quite well.

 

I don’t know ... my expectations for Microsoft are a little different.

While Microsoft could go the opposite direction, I think it would make sense for Microsoft to try to encourage developers who are not fully committed to the next generation of systems to treat the XBox 360, the PC, and their next generation system as a single platform. Most games at the moment already have higher detailed graphical assets and more advanced effects being produced for them because they’re being designed for the XBox 360 and being released for the PC as well. If Microsoft convinces developers that they should release all of their XBox 360 games to their next generation system (with higher detailed assets and better graphical effects while running at a better frame-rate at a higher resolution) they could build a library that is made up of the definitive version of most games without requiring developers to fully migrate to their system. The challenge with this is that Microsoft (and a handful of committed developers) would have to produce the content that really drives sales for 12 to 24 months before other developers were willing to make the switch.