Throwing this quote in at the beginning as people seem to skip right past it:

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.  

For those who are not familiar with it, Moore's law is the follwing:

"The number of transistors that can inexpensively placed on a Integrated Circuit will double every 18 months"

The trend has been more along the lines of every 24 months however for the past 40 years, and is expected to continue for the next 20 years.

Now, based on this, in 4 years both MS and Nintendo can produce both CPUs and GPUs that are more than four times as poweful as their current gen consoles, for the same price (this is all approximate of course)

in 10 years they could use processors that are 32 times as powerful as the current gen for the same price.

This all is looking solely at the processor speed, and not taking in to account any other advancements in technology (eg More advanced pixel pipeline programming (shaders), PPUs, AIPUs, disk-free media distribution, etc)

So the question all this leads up to is the following:

From a technical perspective, do you feel Sony, who is pushing the PS3 as a processing powerhouse, is shooting itself in the foot claiming the PS3 as a "10 year console" and do you think that Sony will be able to bypass the next generation of consoles and have the PS3 survive in the marketplace, especially looking at current sales trends?

I would just like to add, before a flame war starts, that this is not an attack on the PS3, just a questioning of Sony's marketing and plan for the console

You bring up a very good point. If past generations are any indication, the PS3 will be easily outgunned 10 years from now. This doesn't mean it will be dead though. Moore's law applied to the previous generations, but up to just a couple of years ago, you could still walk into a store and buy games for the original Playstation.

The GTA Collector's Edition was released for the Playstation in 2002, 8 years after the original release of the console. I personally bought Final Fantasy Origins at a Best Buy in 2004, a full 10 years after the original Playstation came along. Also, while inferior to the current generation of consoles, the Playstation 2 continues to receive strong support.

My conclusion: It will in fact be looked at as inferior 10 years from now, but that doesn't mean it can't last that long. In order for that to happen though, it has to survive the next couple of years, and this remains to be seen.

I think your point goes to the heart of ps3's problem at the moment. Ps3 may have a 10 year cycle but the it's competition will surely move at a faster pace in terms of going through a full cycle of hardware.

while I expect the PS3 to finally start selling, because of the high price (linked directly to the 10 year strategy due to spec of hardware) they are effectively letting Nintendo and/or Microsoft into the game as serious competition and giving them a great platform for sales for the next 10 years.

I think it is fair to say that the lack of success of ps3 at the moment was not planned by sony. The worst case scenario is that because of the poor start to it's life, the PS3 will never pick up as a popular system. I think the ps3 will succeed eventually but not to the exten of PS2 and will effectively surrender sonys dominance of the console market. I think this is directly as a result of the 10 year plan and the resultant high end spec prices.

Sony could release new console and games can still come till ps3. Like with the ps1 survived 10 years even when ps2 launched came. Sony never said that they wont make new console they just said that ps3 will survive ten years like ps1.

a few comments,

@Yoj: The issue is that sony is using the '10 year startegy' to justify a lack of high quality games at the current time (almost a year in to its life) as developers are 'not yet familiar with it's features and capabilities,) which adds to the uncertainty of the viability of Sony's plan.

Also, I am not saying more powerful technology necesarily will result in better games. I just think the PS3 is particularly succeptable to this kind of concern as it is billed for its technical prowess

That is true, I am not saying they made up the 10 year strategy to defend the lack of games, but they are using it as a defense as to why 1.) Why there is a lack of very high quality games and 2.) why there seems to be little in the way of graphical difference between 360 and PS3 versions of games

And why wouldn't they? Someone might believe them, and it would help whether or not they have a good launch. It was "the PS3 is going to blow everything else away, and it's going to be here for a long time".

We increasingly see it used as a defense against a lack of games. Now it's "the PS3 is pretty unimpressive right now, but it's going to be here for a long time". The tone is very different.

Here's how I see it. Assume for the moment that Sony is correct and the PS3 will have a 10 year shelf life. Lets also assume that the Wii and the Next Nintendo Console will each have a 5 year shelf life. That means in 10 years, we'll see the end of the PS3 and the Wii 2. Now, also make the assumption that the Wii 2 has a similar cost to the Wii. That means in 10 years, someone buying a PS3 and someone buying both the Wii and Wii 2 would pay around the same cost for hardware.

Now where I think Sony is making their mistake is in trying to play to the Cutting edge tech crowd. The general public doesn't go out and buy the latest and greatest, they buy the second or third latest and greatest. They do this because, lets say the Best of a certain product costs 100$. The second best will probably cost 70-80$, and the third best is already down to 50$. In the average consumers mind, that third best is looking pretty tasty. Still pretty kick ass, but half the cost.

Tech companies recoup development costs by charging the early adopters a premium, and what Sony is doing is exactly that. Making everyone an early adopter in their new tech, instead of using the 2nd or 3rd best hardware and charging their customers appropriately.

Anyway, thats how I see it. I have nothing against Sony or the PS3, I just think that they made a foolish choice. I realize that both the PS1 and PS2 are liable to have 10 year shelf lives, but they both started out at half the cost the Ps3 has, and that helps a lot.

They lasted this long (I think the NES managed it as well) largely in part to such a huge player base. A company can't just claim that they'll still be selling a product 10 years down the road and not back it up with sales. If they've only sold say 25 million in 5 years, how are they going to justify selling it for another 5 years if there are 1 or more new systems that look as good or better and have that new car smell to them, especially if third party support is sporadic and less than complete as tends to happen to third place consoles.

Anyway, I think Sony made a gamble and it hasn't payed off. I think they should admit their mistake (at least internally, no need to piss off investors) and make plans for the next gen. Once the new box is on its feet, cut the ps3 loose and accept whatever gains/losses they've made. This is pretty much what Nintendo and Microsoft did with the GC and xbox. No point dragging it out for 10 years if it'll only marginally sell well.