The 360 should have another 2-3 years of solid soft development support but whether the tail end of that support is in the vein of catering to current supportive owners, or catering to an expanded audience may largely be dependent upon the success or luke-warm reception of Natal.

As of right now, the Xbox has more or less tapped the majority of the core gaming audience it could hope to win over this generation after 4 years. Typically, past 3 years is when a console platform has to increasingly rely upon the non-core demographics to see any sort of significant expansion in hardware sales.

As for pricing, while the $199 Arcade was definitely a sales success for MS, but as most gamers acknowledge, it does fall a bit short of the full experience with its limited storage capabilities. If and when the standard Xbox (drop the "Elite" label already) ships with HDD at the same price should be the true indicator of whether the platform will ever hit critical mass sales to anything even approaching the last two PlayStations.

Offhand, I'd say unlikely barring the overwhelming success of Natal.

So maybe Mid-life is about where the 360 is, quite possibly over the hump, but with enough in store for the future to keep it relevant and viable as a primary gaming platform to millions of gamers.

Mid-life crisis.

Its in its mid-30's. Basically its hit its groove.

If you were looking at the 360 just at face value, based on its price, the exclusives its gotten, its 'hype' meter and its age, you could easily say its past its halfway mark or even past its prime. But considering this 'gen' is anything but ordinary and both MS and Sony have stated they wanted their consoles to last as long as possible (even rumoring into 2014 if possible), then these views might just be from looking at past gens as a limited measuring stick.

I'm . . .  I'm just so proud of you.

one of mine is in its 100s.

RROD.

I think if we use traditional modeling, it would be over the hill, starting its downward decline. However, none of the current-gen systems are using the "traditional" model. Microsoft, with Natal, is trying to put a second hill in the path of the 360 for it to go up again. Sony seems to be experimenting with speed in going up and downhill, looking at the long-term picture. And Nintendo seems to just be building a new hill in general, and now they're using a bulldozer to push more dirt up to the side, creating a plateau like they did with the DS. If everyone gets their way, nobody has truely "peaked" yet, including Microsoft. If things go awry (in MS's case, the ball rolls the wrong way down the hill), then things may end much sooner than anyone wants.

I believe the word is "DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!!!111!!11!!ONEONE!!!!111!ELEVEN!!!111!!"

Heh, don't praise my comment too much.  I half supported claims that it is a viable system for the future...and half stated it might be past its prime.

Frankly, my personal opinion is its all based on the standards of any consoles life cycle.  Will it get more good games and will the majority of its installed and future fanabse still be interested in it in 1-3 years?  And that remains to be seen, especially since many games that were once 'exclusives' for the system are going to the PS3 and it is trying VERY hard to double up as the 'ultimate hardcore' and 'we also do casual games' machine.

The future for the 360 is anything but solid.  If anything, the future for Microsofts consoles is on another rocky road from here on out.  They had it EASY the last few years due to Sony messing up a lot and Nintendo practically ignoring their market.  Now Sony is catching up...and they (as in Microsoft with the 360) are trying to actively compete directly with companies like Nintendo and Apple for the 'casual' and 'general' audience.  This is when Microsofts fight actually begins.  And its going to take more than just throwing money at it.

I was just noting how you admitted that this gen is about as unpredictable as it gets when compared to previous gens.  I personally like the unpredictable nature of it, as it makes things very interesting and very frustrating for fanboys, heh heh.