Motion Control To Lengthen Console Hardware Cycles

With the recent E3 demonstrations of new motion-based control for consoles — Microsoft's Natal, Sony's Motion Controller, and Ubisoft's camera-based system for the Wii — analysts now expect the current console generation to last longer than normal. Microsoft exec Shane Kim said he expects the Xbox 360 to last until around 2015, in part due to Natal and new services available through Xbox Live. Signal Hill's Todd Greenwald thinks this cycle may not need to end at all: "Microsoft and Sony have invested so much in their current hardware line, as have third party publishers, that we don't think any party is seriously interested in throwing away these investments and starting over from scratch. For all of these reasons, we think this cycle will last longer than those in the past, and don't see new hardware coming until 2011 at the earliest, and 2012 to 2013 more likely (if at all — if new services like OnLive take off, or if Xbox Live and PlayStation Network become more and more robust, there may not be a need for another console cycle).'"

Comments

The next-gen console to rule all consoles...

[__aaclcg7560]

Isn't the XBox 720 on the drawing board at Microsoft?

Overly Optimistic?

[neogramps]

"he expects the Xbox 360 to last until around 2015" - I don't any 360 will last that long - they'll RROD themselves way before then!

Nintendo Lessons

[Tom]

Just their way of saying "it took us a while, but we think we realized that higher polycounts and more visual effects alone don't make good games and don' sell consoles".