You both realize PS1 was at close to 10m sold before the N64 even released, right?, and not once did the sales for the N64 come close to posing a threat.
By the time the Xbox launched the Ps2 had already built a close to 11m sales lead, a lead that again, was never challenged either in total or weekly sales by the Xbox.

Saturn enjoyed a small and brief lead in during the PS1's Japan-only launch, but the moment PlayStation 1 was available worldwide it quickly got overtaken, and the dreamcast also suffered from poor sales and eventually being scrapped, mainly because it tried to launch mid cycle, 2 years before the PS2.

Namiireis point is that the PS1 and PS2 thrieved just fine with no major sales challengers in the industry, and it's a valid point, both systems overshadowed other consoles on the market at the time for both generations, and hit sales records that to this day havent been broken.

It's entirely possible to do well and make advancements in the console space, without stiff competition from other consoles.

Having competition IS beneficial however, and can lead to wins for the consumer (price wars, exclusive deals, etc), but isn't essential to a consoles growth, i'd also argue that for the benefits market competition has, it also has it's downsides too, exclusives spread across more systems (costs more to enjoy the games), timed exclusivity, companies impacting each others development process by buying out manufacturers, patents and development studios, and in general contributing towards a split between gamers who would otherwise just get on with the fun job of playing games.

Of these very few times I agree with Phil on this one ...

I can imagine at least one more generation with the HD twins and two more attempts from Nintendo. By then Moore's Law will have broken down thus rendering the need to push out new platforms irrelevant. If you can't increase transistor counts then getting more power will be very hard for a LOOONG time ...

Nintendo has to go after that same demographic.  There isn't much of a market for any other demographic in consoles anymore. Nintendo is going after the casual market on mobile now.

they are allready planing the next gen. and i guess they arent so much behind nintendo on this.
sony is talking about higher specs for some ps4 models too.

Just like the current one?

Physical hardware you own that plays games.

Theres still new materials, and techniques (3D stacked dies), even if we hit a wall around 5nm.

Moore's Law will be fine for another 20years or so :p

Just for clarity, someone Tweet him and ask if there will be another generation of XB consoles.

New materials will be need at sub 10nm regardless ... 

Die stacking isn't very useful for high powered processors that consume over 100 watts so it's pointless ... 

Yeah, Moore's will definitely be fine for another 20 years ... /sarcasm

here are some reasons:

- smartphone gets stronger = might replace consoles (already happend in japan)

- Cloud Gaming may be the future, no real console needed anymore

- technology is already very advanced. I dont expect any big changes anymore in terms of graphics/performance. Check Crysis 1. Hell the game is from 2007 and didnt look much worse as todays aaa games. And its 8! years old. So probl games in 8 years wont really look much better either, new console hardware probl isnt worth the small improvements.

Thanks you for your post.

I thought what i said was easy to understand, but i guess someone tried to look smart too fast.