Satoru Iwata says predicting console lifespan is "nonsense"

[HappySqurriel]

Ail said:

All I was saying is that what Iwata said is a lot of hot air.

When the engineers design a console, part of the input has to be how long you expect the item to last on the market. It's just basic logic...( so that for example you don't include a graphic chip that will go out of production in a few years...)

Maybe if the console isn't successfull it won't last as long as planned but you have to an idea to design it......

Almost all components will continue to be produced if they're popular enough to justify the cost to manufacture them ... As an example the motorola 68000 processor is still in production after 30 years on the market, and is heavily used in embedded systems.

Now, as soon as a console is released all manufacuturers R&D tends to be split into two distinct groups, a group that continues to work on the existing console (creating revisions and looking to reduce the cost) and another group that works on the follow up system (initially just looking into the direction of their next platform); at some point in time a company has to decide that they're going to release the follow up system and then the R&D will become more centered around the upcomming console.