IGN: Xbox 720 Will Be Six Times as Powerful as Current Gen

[zarx]

Sevengen said:
@Mr. Khan said....

"Sounds reasonable to me. It's more likely in my mind that Microsoft and Sony aren't going to take as big a leap with their next consoles as they did with the 360 and PS3. One easily forgets that PS360 were easily 3 years too soon, as evidenced by their unprecedented sales patterns."

How does one 'easily' forget that the PS360 were released 3 years too soon??... lol.
I'm pretty sure, well absolutely sure actually, that neither console was released early. I think they both came to retail at the exact time they're respective producers intended.
I think what you're easily forgetting, or not recognizing all together, is that the PS3 and 360 are drastically different video game consoles than they're predecessors, incorporating so many different types of entertainment into single, convergent-type machines, that basing expected lifetime market performance on the historical sales curve of prior consoles is completely inaccurate, if only because those previous game-decks were just that, simple gaming consoles.
These ain't your daddy's video game systems so to speak.
I think what you term as '3 years too soon' is in reality a testament to the amazingly, long-term design approach that both Microsoft and Sony employed when building their consoles, ensuring themselves a stable gaming platform that would be powerful enough to at least keep pace with the flux of technology as the general public sees it, and adaptable enough to fool those people who pay closer attention.
If you look at the 360 today.....
'one easily forgets this is the same console that launched with an entirely different user interface, a comparably weak, if almost non-existent, menu of alternative entertainment options, and a game catalogue that included the likes of 'King Kong' and 'Perfect Dark Zero'
Those unprecedented sales patterns you referenced are a result of the intuition, hard work, and opposition to convention that both companies have demonstrated in growing their consoles. The network of games and entertainment options offered is like absolutely nothing before, so why would the sales patterns of either follow historical record?

the PS3 was even delayed because of the blu diode shortage and low CELL yeilds...