Interesting predictions. Sounds like you think every console maker will take the Wii route and release a console that is only slightly more powerful than the last. However, I think that with the exception of the Wii, both the Xbox and PS4 would fail. That Xbox 370 could be achieved with 30 dollars over the current one. Even if Microsoft takes a tiny leap, it will most certainly be a lot more powerful than that. Also, neither one of those consoles is powerful enough for real 1080P games at 60 FPS. Sure, certain games like basketball and tennis will work at 1080P, but the vast majority simply won't look good. Not enough memory or processing power.

EDIT: I just re-read your specs. Was it a joke? Your PS4 seems very underpowered and the Xbox 370 is 100% pathethic and a joke. I certainly hope you are joking.

I agree totally.  Those kind of upgrades are just not necessary to hit "real" 1080p gaming, which is the target of the 8th gen, not direct competition with PCs, or each other for "highest priced console".

That's why I upped the memory a bunch, and its really the GPUs that are keeping the current consoles (esp the PS3, which has plenty of CPU power) from hitting 1080p with every game.  The only thing that really taxes the CPU these days is physics and animation, and both of those features will be available in hardware, on GPUs, shortly.  NVidia owns PhysX, and Intel owns Havok, if you weren't aware.  They have some plans.

Any redesign beyond what I posted is basically just wasted money.  MS may up the bar as much as Sony, but I kinda doubt it.  THe X360 is already easily powerful enough to hold onto the blue ocean for years to come -- its only the software that needs to change.  Sony's target isn't the Blue Ocean, and it never will be.

Actually, they should. IBM is mass-manufacturing the POWER7 for super-computers and the ATI GPU will already be a bit outdated by the time the console launches. Believe it or not, this is conservative. IBM already has 6 core Power6 CPUs @ 4.2Ghz out there. I know these specs seem radical, but they may very well be underpowered. Hardware moves fast, especially console hardware. Realisticly, I can see this launching at $299 - $399. 

Actually, it is mainly memory that is keeping that consoles from 1080P. Textures for 1080P simply take too much memory. Also, with the introduction of CUDA and other environment, developers are moving away from the CPU for physics. GPUs are absolutelty amazing at physics. In fact, next generation engines already have the physics running on the GPU. I don't mean to sound offensive, but unless you expect those systems to launch at $99- $149, those specs are very outdated.

I think you are missing the upcoming nanotech wall for tech advancement. All three console makers will want to release a console before those problems get solved, let alone before they are affordably solved.

So you totally agree, it sounds. =)

Keep in mind that the PC CPUs have a LOT more hardware than chips like the Xenos do. The Xenos lacks out-of-order instructions, and has a really cheap branch predictor, as well as a pretty small cache, relative to PC cores.

No one will use a next gen Intel, AMD, or IBM processor out of the box. They will minimize it to a huge degree before putting it in a console, and that will cost a lot of R&D money.

I think you need to read my post again. I disagreed with you, claiming that memory is the biggest barrier for this generation of consoles. None of the specs you listed can realisticly handle 1080P without much trouble. The games would seriously be confined. I did agree that GPUs are becoming more important for physics, however, I fail to see how that is relevant to the topic we were discussing.

I think you're overestimating hardware advancement, based upon history, and not looking forward at the smaller processes necessary to reduce heat/increase clock (as you suggest) for cheap console hardware.  As the process size gets smaller, electron loss gets much worse -- resulting in a lot more heat generated.  Unless diamond wafers become the Next Big Thing, or someone cooks up a cheap technique to fabricate chips smaller than 22nm (or even 32nm), the specs you listed are going to be top-of-the-line for several years, at best, and just not feasible for consoles, from a financial standpoint.