MS and Sony are losing way too much money off the current platforms and the chances of time improving that situation with Wii dominance is not positive. Not to mention we've seen how well their published and developed games have sold. Most software sold on their platforms comes from the 3rd parties meaning they aren't having their software push them even.

Point being they can't stick with the consoles for much longer... especially MS. Sony may still be looking to the future but it's hard to think MS still can especially wiht a little upward momentum. MS could surprise us and have the Xbox 3 out by late 2009 but more probable we'll see it in 2010. And if MS releases then Sony will have to compete.

As for Nintendo its hard to think they can support Wii too much longer in the future. 2009 though might be their peak year but once again they'll have to compete and at least release N6 by 2011. They are hoping MS and Sony will continue their theories of an extended gen and be able to shaft them. 2013 is simply outrageous though. Anything after 2012 is outrageous. You think Sony and MS are going to seriously sit in there and take all those losses for that long then you are crazy. They've realized by now, at least Sony, that they can't profit from this and abandoning ship may be the best idea. Hell Sony's change could be so drastic that the next console from them may not even be called the Playstation.

It's not all about wii xbox and ps3... the succesor to the DS would also be considered next-gen too. That's bound to come first.

Alot of you are seriously underestimating how long this current generation will last, especially for the 360.

Records sales/profits/revenue in the game industry, hello? 360 selling at double the rate Xbox sold, hello? Developers/publishers/consumers only now starting to shelf the last generation dominant PS2 development kits, hello? The only thing coming is an update on the consoles, Wii HD, 360 Lite and PS3 Slim. And I dont expect these updates until 2010-2011.

By the way Zucas, your sig gif is very disturbingly making me stare.

Hhaa good it's meant to be quite disturbing but in the movie its kinda funny haha.

I consider handheld generations seperate though.... I mean the GameBoy gen was presumably the 1st gen for handhelds, yet it didn't finish until 2000ish when GBA was released, then GBA had a short life, so 2nd gen was very short, and now the DS and PSP make up 3rd gen for handhelds.

Arguably the GB Colour could be considered the 2nd gen, but that would still only make DS/PSP 4th gen.... not 7th like consoles.

I see where your coming from... I was just going by what Wikipedia says. (They say that 7th gen started in '04 with the DS)

Nintendo have never been first, except maybe the NES. The Wii was released last, despite the GC being on 1/5th the sales of the PS2

Nintendo hate generational changes, and have gone on record saying (not direct quotes, I'm paraphrasing)

It's unfair to customers to make them pay for a console too frequently

It's only people that are running at a loss or have low marketshare that force a generational change too early.

That's just it, though.  A "Wii HD" wouldn't be a generational change, just like the DSi or PSP-3000 aren't.  The PSP-3000 has 64MB of memory, whereas the PSP-1000 only had 32MB -- yet its basically the same machine.  An "upscaled" version of the Wii would allow developers to develop Wii games in much the same manner as PC games (scalable), except in a *much* more controlled environment.  You could always guarantee that every title supported the Wii SD, and yet allow Wii HD owners to have additional features, like better textures, or higher resolution.  The Wii DVD is just as capable as the X360 DVD -- there's certainly no need for a disc format change, for the extra data.

Throw in an internal HDD, or HDD expansion for the Wii HD, and voila -- the Wii's lifetime, in THIS generation, is extended by another 5 years, AND Nintendo sells half their Wii SD installed base (or more) all over again.

How do you explain the DS? Also, people wouldn't have to upgrade. PC games run on dozens of hardware combinations, developers could handle programming to run on two.

Maybe I’m slow, but I don’t understand why anyone would think that Nintendo would release a "Wii HD" unless it was just a Wii system with a built in scaler.

Why would Nintendo choose to dramatically increase their software development costs, hurt their hardware profitability, injure their image with fans (by having a short lived product), and sacrifice further sales of what will become their most popular home console ever when they're not being pressured by anyone? This would be a lot like a hockey team that was up 3 to 1 after their first period sending all of their best players home so they can show off the talent of their rookies ... Its a losing strategy that only a moron would use.