Can the 360 really live that long!

[rocketpig]

Joelcool7 said:

Shane Kim the head of Microsoft Game Studios has gone on the record today that Microsoft's X-Box 360 will have a minimum lifespan of 7 years. (Source) Shane said "“Clearly we didn't do that with the original Xbox, which was a strategic decision we made. Admittedly, we don't have any experience doing this, but we're pretty confident 360 will have a long tail.”

Seriously Microsoft intentionally and strategically shortened the X-Box's lifespan. Does anybody actually believe that Microsoft intentionally failed to keep the X-Box platform alive? We do know that Microsoft pushed for the release of the X-Box 360 before its competitors could launch theirs. However consoles like PS2/GameCube are still availible in some stores. But X-Box has been gone for a very long time, yeah some software is still availible but no hardware.

Could Microsoft have really kept the X-Box alive longer then its 5-years (4-Year life cycle)?

With the X-Box 360 only a few years old and a new generation expected about 2011 can we really expect to see the 360 live much longer then that? Once the next generation of consoles launch will the 360 have the user base to maintain its prescense into 2013-2014.

Considering 2010-2011 is when the next generation of consoles are expected to debut. The PS2 has been able to survive over 7 years but it has over 120-million units sold can the 360/PS3/Wii even possibly reach that number and survive a wave of next generation consoles in 2010? 

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They did intentionally fail to keep the Xbox alive. Being n00bs to the hardware industry, Microsoft signed some very bad contracts with Nvidia and Intel. Those contracts pretty much ensured that MS would never stop losing money on the console, forcing MS to turn to IBM/ATI and get the 360 rolling faster than they initially anticipated.

I fully expect MS to keep the 360 around longer than 5 years. I think they'll release a new console in year five or six but they'll probably keep the 360 going for a year or two after that point.