Well the DS has so much life left IMO

In 2006 Kaz  Hirai was pretty explicit about this actually:

"....

Q:Beyond the pricing and availability of the PlayStation 3, one of the big pieces of news from this year's E3 was more information about Nintendo's new console, the Wii. There were rumors that the Wii would be priced for less than $250. How did that affect PlayStation 3?

Hirai: The pricing that we announced for the PlayStation 3 is a price that ultimately offers fantastic value to the consumers. I think that we are offering a very good value for the consumers. We look at our products having a 10-year life cycle, which we've proven with the PlayStation. Therefore, the PlayStation 3 is going to be a console that's going to be with you again for 10 years. We're not going to ask the consumers to suddenly buy another PlayStation console in five years time, and basically have their investment go by the wayside. So for all those reasons, I think at $599 we're offering a very good value to the consumers.

...."

Source

note:modified original emphasis to make it easier to see what I was referring to

Now personally I think they are lying through their teeth and they would be pretty stupid if they held to this, but they did say it.

Wii lifespan has already been expanded due to two reasons:

1. No price drop in the first 20 months - none foreseeable in next 12 months. The market have given themselves plenty of room to move down in price, boosting sales and increasing the life span - remember GC dropped the price within the first 12 months, leaving them nowhere to go.
2. Wii Motion Plus is basically Wii 2

My Thoughts:

Nintendo: Release a new console when the current one stops selling well. Stop supporting previous console after the launch of a new.

SONY: Keeps console support for a minimum of 10 years, and release a new console 6-7 years after the current one launched.

MS: Make sure our console is released atleast 6 months b4 competitors to gain dev support and a console race headstart. Stop supporting previous console after the launch of the new.

Nope. Which ever company that has the dominate console supports that console until it is no longer viable. If there is an even split of market shall no system recieves much support after its successor has been launched. Only truly dominating systems have long lifespans. NES, GB, PS1, and PS2 all had long shelf lives because they were dominant. The SNES had long lifespan (8 years) but fell short of the ten year mark because it was only dominant in Japan.

The market leader always supports their previous console well into the launch of their new console and for years after that as well. Nintendo did it with the NES and SNES and then Sony did the same with both PlayStations. I'm sure the Wii will still be getting software releases for years after Wii 2 is released.

And how is this a jab at Sony ?
In terms of lifespan of consoles and their support it seems to me Sony has nothing to learn from Nintendo..

If you don't have any expectation of how long a console should last it seems to me it's pretty hard to design it to ensure that technologically it will make it all the way ( Storage capacity anyone ?)

@axumblade: It seems you didn't "get" the idea. If we look at the games 20 years ago (and beyond), you could say that nearly all the games were "bridged" games, meaning that they were easy to pick up and play for everyone, but had enough challenge and stuff to do even for the most demanding gamer.
Now, let's take a look at the recent games; the games have evolved in more "hardcore" direction, they aren't easy to pick up and play, they require a high learning curve. This have caused certain audience to flee, so the game makers have needed to do something, so they have toned down the challenge, leading to easy games with high learning curve. And when you look at Nintendos games, they still use the same formula as they did 20-30 years ago and there's a reason for it (which shows that Nintendo will never make a "casual" console): Although the "casual" audience is huge, much bigger than the "hardcore" audience, there still are millions of gamers outside the "casual" group and even more when the audience expands, because some will become as "casual" and some as "hardcore". Catering only one group leaves a lot of money on the table. Now, imagine that you're going to make games for both of these groups, with a budget of 15M each, you're ending up having 30M budget, when you could make a "bridged" game with 15M, which caters the whole range of audience (or two games with 30M, which both reach all the gamers).

Well, it looks like my explanation turned out to be pretty bad, but i hope you get the idea that financially it makes no sense trying to cater only some of the people (who basically buys less games) when you could cater everyone. Besides, in reality, who you would want to cater to, is the core audience (which is defined by what games sell), not "casual" or "hardcore".

@Ail: Because it's the companys financials that tells you how long you can and how long you will support your dying console. Not companys PR.
Besides, notice that NES was still shipped nearly 20 years after its release and it got its last games 12 years after its release. PS2 could have a shot to these numbers, as well as Wii, but not PS3 because of its lack of popularity. So as you can see, even in Nintendos case, it's only the financial benefits that that have cut the support (as well as in Sonys case).

All I was saying is that what Iwata said is a lot of hot air.

When the engineers design a console, part of the input has to be how long you expect the item to last on the market. It's just basic logic...( so that for example you don't include a graphic chip that will go out of production in a few years...)

Maybe if the console isn't successfull it won't last as long as planned but you have to an idea to design it......