Slashdot Mirror
The 5-Year Console Cycle Is Dead
Pickens writes "The Xbox 360 recently turned five years old, and with no known successor on the horizon for the 360, PlayStation 3 or Wii, Cnet reports on the death of the 5-year console cycle — one of the video game industry's most longstanding truisms. For example, the Nintendo Entertainment System came out in 1985, followed by the Super NES in 1991, the Nintendo 64 in 1996, the GameCube in 2001, and the Wii in 2006. But now, why should console makers upgrade their offerings? Consumers are still buying their machines by the hundreds of thousands each month, and ramped-up online initiatives are breathing new life into the systems. A lot of it has to do with the fact that with the current generation of consoles, each company found a way to maximize either the technology behind the devices, or the utility to a wide range of new gamers."
I'd be willing to bet that in the past 5 years graphics technology has improved enough to make it worth replacing the whole guts of a console box with something newer.
I'd also be willing to bet that the economy being shite has reduced the disposable income of the planet to the point where profits on such a development program wouldn't be worth the effort.
But unemployed people have less money and more time, so selling them old technology still makes a pretty good incremental margin.