We can also add to that software advertisement and exclusivity deals. Theres alot of money to be made to recoup all the investment. Most of this money is made through software sales and royalties. With less third parties now in existance, less games and possibly less royalties if YoY sales go down relative to the previous gen.

 
I want it to be about the same. I buy all consoles so it gets pretty pricey for me. Sony showed with the PS3 that you can still amaze people with its hardware during its last year (with the Last of Us) before the release of the PS4.

As for your comment about it being the last generation. I think that is all hyperbole. A lot of people state a lot of things as coming now. Leaving no system to me is like leaving a vacuum open for anyone to jump right in. There will always be a demand for consoles. If two of the big 3 leave the hardware race than you can bet that third player just garnished a huge market share with no direct competition. Yeah, somewhat competition still but its huge being the only dedicated hardware on the shelf. Because of Nintendo's history, they might be that sole player but I believe we have at least one if not two big generations ahead of us were all 3 are competing it out. Besides, Nintendo strategy might lend itself to a possible hybrid handheld/console that people have often mentioned in hopes and rumors.

Ninty almost always launches consoles with a six-year life cycle in mind, but their handhelds are iffy in holding up that regard.

Microsoft and Sony have a lot more to gain from making their consoles' life cycles much longer, though. They spend less on development costs, third-parties get accustomed to their hardware, and they get higher sold-through numbers by the end of their life cycles (PS2 numbers say a lot in this regard).

I don't believe there will be any games actually running in 4K on console in 2019. If there are they it will be like 1080p games last gen. Yet they will have 4K upscaling, and 1080p to 1440p games. Sub 1080p and no support for 4K output (lacking HDMI 2.0) will start to hurt in 5 years. Plus VR could really use some more powerful hardware, nothing to do with game budget. For now VR games will have to be scaled down to provide the minimum required 1080p60 x2 output.

Developers seem to target their games for the next gen anyway the way they end up running. Hence all the remasters now, they look perfectly fine running on new hardware.

I prefer longer generations with bigger jumps from one to the next so 7-8 years is fine by me.

6 years max.

A tad shorter than last gen. Not too short.

The thing is the costs don't outweigh the benefits at all. A shorter generation would collapse the console industry. All those Developers you speak of would be developing on PCs, because at worst consoles would be history and at best the only thing left would be Nintendo.

End it as soon as possible.LOL