Not a huge thing, but I think it's significant. In an interview with Peter Moore, EGM grilled him about when the next one would come out, and questions about if they'd drop the X360 like a box of rocks like they did with the 360. He said that they were going to support it "as long as it sold" which is BS, because the Xbox sold well into this year despite no producting after Oct. 2005. At any rate, he stated the production team from the 360 is working on the next Xbox, and their looking into what kind of CPUs will be available on the market in 2011-2012. That would put the 360 at a lifespan of 6 or 7 years, a far cry from the Xbox's 4 years. Part of this (I assume) is to maintain profitability of the 360 over it's lifespan...The longer you get into the cycle, the more profit you can make due to stopping being a loss leader. How do you think this will affect sales? Personally, I see the 360 pulling a near-PS2 in the US and continue to sell well into 2011 and even 2012. The Xbox franchise seems to be very strong in the US with Halo, and should strenghten further, as MS now will have the entire generation to make games with Rare, Lionhead, Bizzare, and other studios they have. I think 55m worldwide is very reasonable, as it'd be just at 9.1m units sold a year for 6 years - to which the 360 sold in it's first year.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
