Well, in August of 2006, prior to its launch, the SCEA president talked about sony having a 10 year plan (see my post above)

Seems to me like a marketing spin purely to convince potential buyers that the PS3's price represented a safe investment.

If so, it's still working for some I suppose.

Succesful consoles last for a long time. Unsuccesful ones die out a few years earlier due to lack of developer support, and thus sales momentum.

When Sony says the PS3 will last for 10 years they don't mean to elaborate on their market plans, but declare it's going to be as succesful as the last one.

Playstation 3 a 10-year console? No.

Sony bypassing the next-generation of consoles? No.

No, PS3 will not be here 10 years. The only consoles in a generation that has a chance of being around for more than 6 years is the generational leaders. This because that console already has the greater majority of support and can keep pushing out quality games even after the next gen starts. Why do you think the PS2 sales have rivaled 360/PS3 sales throughout this year? So long as Wii remains in a comfortable lead, it is the only machine with any possibility of lasting 10 years.

Now, based on Nintendo's plan thus far, it won't as I see Nintendo bringing out WiiHD within 6 years at about the same time PS4 and Xbox3 makes a debut. Of course, the latter two's strategies will have changed dramatically.

It seems like the General Consensus is that there is no way sony can bypass releasing another console in around five years (as I agree)

So assuming they WILL release PS4 in 5 years or so, does that decrease the overall value of the PS3, and place it in to the "too risky to drop half a grand on" category

They may have smugly believed their own propaganda about the PS3 being 'Futureproof' and actually believed it would last 10 years.

However, I'm sure they are already designing a PS4 for 2012 just in case the PS3 doesn't start to pick up soon.

Don't expect them to publicly admit to abandoning a 10 year cycle though, at least, not for another couple years.

Moore's Law only works if the market is willing to pay for the increase. Silicon has almost been pushed to it's limits. Many of the future tech that would be used to increase the number of transistors cost to much. I read some interesting articles on this recently. http://www.slate.com/id/2132826/ or http://home.earthlink.net/~moores-law/ I think this quote sums up the idea of Moore's Law best: Moore's Law END Lies in Economics, not Physics:

KoopaKidBilly: Thats why there is the qualifier "inexpensively" in moores law. If someone is willing to pay for it, it is possible to create a PC/Console processor that is significantly more powerful than what we have right now, it would just cost too much .

The general belief in the industry is that Moore's law will hold for the next 2 decades, give or take a few years.

Quick question, how many games were released for the PS1 in 2004? Or 2003? Or 2002? Or even 2001?

Of those, how many were good, or at the very least how many did you buy and enjoy?

The 10 year cycles is marketing spin, most gamers wont be buying new games on the PS3 in 2016.