XOne probably will last that long, because it's highly doubtful that there will be XTwo. Minor hardware changes have been announced today for their entire devices division, with more pronounced focus on pushing "digital life experiences".
I expect that the future will see more focus on mobile (their core business), with continued investments into Windows Phones and tablets, in order to increase market share in growth sectors.
Halo: Spartan Assault 2 might become more important to them than Halo 6 in a few years.

Be interesting to see if this guy still has a job after these massive layoffs. Right now, I wouldn't trust a THING any MS exec says at the moment until Nadella's "restructuring" is complete!

This gen will be much shorter than last. 4K tvs are coming, VR is coming, neither which the current consoles can comfortably support. In 4 to 6 years cheap Steam boxes are going to be a sizeable threat to ps4/xbox one.

With cross gen games becoming the norm plus no longer selling hardware at a loss at launch, why would console companies wait 8 years and risk someone else stealing away the audience.

And since the consoles are far more straight forward to program for this time, we might not see the dramatic increases in graphics quality during the gen. Infamous SS will be looking quite old on your 65" 4K tv in 2020.

And let's not forget the hardware cost recovery aspect. Last gen each system cost money to sell. For now we already know Sony profits a bit from each PS4 since launch day, I assume it should be the same at least for MS (dunno about Nintendo). Less time needed to recoup the costs. Though obviously that also depends on selling rate...shouldn't be a problem for ps4 but right now dubious for the others

Wouldn't mind this gen to only last 4 years.

Harvey, the Eagle-eyed pixel discounter? He can always get a job testing 4K TV-sets...

I agree.