14 DAY TRIAL // Sony has long maintained that the PlayStation 3, like its predecessor PS2, has a ten-year life cycle but until now Microsoft has not made any clear comments on that of the Xbox 360. Now, it seems the company is also interested in keeping its console on the market as long as possible.
David Hufford, who is the senior director of Xbox product management, talked to the United Kingdom Guardian newspaper at the Consumer Electronics Show and said that “I think it's important to say that the Xbox 360 is the console of the long future for us. There is no need to launch a new console, because we're able to give this console new life either with software upgrades or hardware upgrades like Project Natal.”
The Microsoft man believes that “the midpoint” has not yet been reached although he would not venture a number of years for which the Xbox 360 is expected to stay on the market.
Analysts have long speculated, in the absence of actual data from Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft, that the development costs for the current generation of home gaming consoles, especially the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, has drained a lot of money, most of which has not yet been recovered by the companies.
Creating something like the Xbox 720 or the PlayStation 4 will probably cost even more and it would take even longer to turn a clear profit. Companies are turning to add ons like the Sony wand and Project Natal to create a sense of innovation and improvement for customers while keeping the current hardware base going.
Sony's motion tracking wand is set to be released at some point during spring, while Project Natal has been confirmed for the holiday season. Probably, the first videogames for both peripherals will be titles easy to pick up and play, targeted at the non-gamer crowd.