@profcrab, while i do understand the issue surrounding the demise of original xbox hardware. it has encumbered this next gen the 360 with a forcefully longer life. it has to stay on the market till at least 2012 to remove the perception of short gens by microsoft. the other side effect would be the console ending up like the saturn/dream cast with 3rd parties releasing little to no games, I do know sony had a hand in this by paying ea to not make games for the dreamcast sony/ea madden deal.
and honestly the dreamcast is a good representation of the 360, the 360s first year of hardware was slowed by the knowledge that the ps3 was around the corner. the difrence has been ms offering good third party support, sometimes paying for it. and xbox live (it is a shame that the dreamcast got tossed under the bus the online they had was great for its time)
I dont think MS would put up with having to buy 3rd party support for the next gen. so far it does not look like they will have too, they just need to keep the 360 a strong selling platform that moves lots of software, and a hardware shift early would kill that
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