Hardcore is rarely used in business. You can refere to your normal business as core, but I would be hard pressed to puit customers in categories. It will tend to create tunnel vision.

The bold is wrong. Out side of population growths, the PS1/PS2 didn't add many people. It was not an expansion of games but games riding the hight tide of good economies and other things. The three major factors that made the PS1 and PS2 generations successus

• Population growth (which is now down turing in Japan and many European nations)
• Expanding globaly (The PS1 was the first system to be a success in all major regions. The NES never took off in Europe)
• Gamers having higher disposable income (a lot of gamers were carrying over. They had more money then they did when they were kids, so they could buy more games and systems. This is what lead to multiple console ownership)

I think I posted this already in this thread, but I'll do it again if not. Reggie, before the Wii was shown, gave a speach about the state of the industry. Most of the data showed declines all around. Japan's market was down. Young males were plaing fewer games. Household penetration was the lowest in the PS2 era. So gaming has not been growing. It has been shrinking.

Also, all gamers on the Atari and NES were noit hardcore. They were all just starting into games. There was no strong market before. The hardcore gamers during the NES days were on the game dedicated PCs which were 16 bit at the time. NES games and gamers were casual as they were designed for short burst of play. The real hardcore gamers were playing longer role playing games on conputers.

^Way before the NES and way before the PC was a viable gaming platform there were plenty of hardcore gamers in the arcades, on the 8-bit home computers and on the older consoles. I was there, and there were young kids my age pouring coin after coin in arcade machines and talking about the best strategies while they walked to school. Buying magazines that detailed the games of the Atari VCS down to the last score for each kind of ship you shooted down, giving strategies and revealing exploitable glitches. It doesn't take long for a small child to become infatuated with something. Believe me, we were no less hardcore in our interest than any modern gamer can be. And since consoles and computers were much rarer, it was way more likely that an owner was a very dedicated gamer, not a casual one.

About the households, assuming it means what it sounds like i.e the share of the hosueholds that have bought a given console, the two things are not mutually exclusive. The number of households where a console is bought can decline while inside those households there is more gaming performed by casual adult gamers and in family reunions and less by younger kids on their own.

Again, just like Reasonable I am european and the PS1 around here was the apparent threshold that liberated gaming -or at least some gaming- from the geeky and kiddy image.

i think all three will take your advice.

The reason the next gen isn't coming soon is development costs - no t the costs of the techonology. Making the same games 60fps 1080p isn't really a significant bump in graphics, and people would chosse the cheaper system.  No 3rd parties will get on board if development costs increase.  We're stuck with 360 and PS3 for quite awhile - I think both MS and Sony knew this to start this gen, MS opted to beat sony to the market and cheaper - Sony opted to cram in as much technology as possible.

It will be interesting if Sony really does go aggressive to the rumored $199 in an attempt to get these investors to pull out with xbox. A $199 PS3 may assure that MS will not be profiting from 360.  I just don't think Sony is that stupid to put out a $600 console without knowing it would become cost effect to produce in the long run.

it would be borring without either. without sega it got borring.

Men dont these bastards have enough money to wipe their ****** asses.

it's the greedy where talking about

The xbox is finally profitable so it would be stupid to drop it now.  Also Microsoft has made huge strides this gen in terms of gaining market share and popularity.  If they continue to do what they are doing now and make sure they don't repeat the mistakes of this gen with the rrod they will become profitable even faster next gen and experience higher levels of profitability.

The 360 and original xbox are two of my favorite consoles of all time so I for one hope they never leave the console race it was hard enough to say goodbye to sega.  And besides if Microsoft leaves the console war who is Sony and their loyalists going to hate on?  Most people can't hate on Nintendo because most people at one time or another was a Nintendo fan.

So the R&D for the next xbox  will basically eat any profits from the 360. and the slim is a rumor that i find to be bullcrap. How could they shrink a console that doesn't even have its power brick inside to start with?