Microsoft: The 360 will be selling for a looooong, long time.

[Mifely]

Here's an out-there monkey-wrench:

Low-power consoles become the rage in a few years, as energy prices skyrocket. You might expect a low-power 360 to be on the market a loooong while before a new one shows. Presumably, as nations around the world convert to 100% electric vehicles and engines, power-demands from non-fossil sources will increase dramatically.

The Wii is pretty much the only console set to evolve to a Wii-2, given its 18W consumption in its current form. Even the slim PS2 is still 45W. The amount of wattage your console uses will become a heckuva lot more important when the power companies start charging 10-20x (or more) for power usage over a soft cap, or just plain limit the amount of wattage a home can utilize at once, or monthly. No one is going to turn off their refrigerator to turn on a XBox720. Until its at least < 100W, there's a possibility that no one will even consider buying such a beast. Even the 360 has some serious shrinkage to do to reach that.

Since M$ major market is in the US, which is probably going to have the hardest time converting from non-fossil fuels in the short-term, M$ would be foolish to not look to the less power-hungry Wii for inspiration. The 360 works fine as a Wii-2 substitute, given a more power-efficient package.  By late 2009, or more likely 2010, such a package could be made available, and in a sense, M$ would hit their "we're first" goal again.