ten-year lifecycles

[Geondp]

Well after reading some more about what sony whats to do. just wanted to think what you guys tought about ten-year lifecycles. ala no new system but every 10 years! I think that 5 years we had was good.. but reading they are saying that none of the new systems would reach there prime for at least 8 years after launch. now im all for more games and better games.. but 10 years seems like a very long time to me =) just wanted to see waht you guys tought

[shadytool]

5 year life span seems like a good amount of time to me.  i dont know off hand how many years in the gennesis or snes reached their prime but it was prolly under  5 years.  the techonology was simpiler than it is now.  the nes was maxed out by the time the snes came around and that was, what... 7 years?  

maybe these new systems are so advanced that developers wont reach their maximum power until 5 years (or 8 ) into their life span.  who knows.  the saturn was suposed to be more powerful than the PSone but noone could really program for it couse of the difficult architecture in it.  who knows what those games could have been like!  

what if that happened to sony?  they are on top of the world right now, but maybe they are saying this 8 year peak shit cause they know that developers are going to have a hard time working with their system.  wouldnt that be some shit.  then nextbox comes out and is easy as hell to program for and we never hear from sony again until they realease the add-on for the PS3 called the "256X".  

i'm not going to include nintendo in this because they are slow at releasing their systems and we will be lucky if the next cube is out after 8 years of putting up with the nextbox and PS3-256X.

[T]

I would love to see a 10 year cycle

I am one of the suckers who buys every new system

It would do wonders for my wallet

[Arrrhalomynn]

I don't think any console will get a lifespan that long. People like new things. And if a company developes a new console after 5 years, the consumer will buy it. Even if there's only a slight difference with the previous one.

Just look at the car industry. People buy a new car, and sell it again in 2 or 3 years. And new cars aren't that much better.

[Lord Nepenthean]

Well, PS1 still has a FEW games coming out for it, nine years after the fact.  Thank goodness they didn't wait till next year to release PS2, though.  Then there is always Game Boy, but Game Boy defies all laws of video games.  The mono unit lasted until 1998, which was also nine years if I'm not mistaken.  Count the color system (since it was still pretty much the same thing), and you'e over ten years on it.  But again, Game Boy IS different.

It's hard to say, but I think longer console lifespans may work better than they did ten years ago (graphics are getting to the point that they won't improve THAT much with new console generations), but I still think ten years is a bit much.  Supporting a console for that long seems feasible, but making it the number one priority for that long seems goofy for the reasons people mentioned above.

[Arrrhalomynn]

Supporting might be possible, but people like new stuff. People that buy a console at launch, don't want to buy the same console in 5 years when it breaks. They want a better one.

By now everyone who wanted a playstation has one. And many people have been playing on it for a few years already. So there's a huge market of people that are interested in buying a new console. Sure, technologically a console might last 10 years, but a company would be crazy not to release something new.

[Hydrobond]

And after one attempt at the ten year life cycle, they will realize that it was a bad idea and switch back to the current pace.  Or this may open up voids for other companies to come in and try their hand at console gaming; possibly even a return for Sega.  Although, it would be nice to see more concentration on the content rather than the system hardware itself.

[Izret101]

i dont think that the consoles will go in 10 year intervals because it is far to long a time for the progression of technology. i think 5 years  would be a sufficient amount of time to get together enough new technology to improve graphics, hd size, loading times, etc. also in 10 years time if a home systems would barely be able to hold up against pc's at all

[danvx6]

I would love to see a console that remains popular for 10 years so i dont have to worry about my "new" system that i got 2 years after its release becoming obsolete, but that won't happen, Izret's point on consoles not holding up to PCs is correct, they would be much more advanced after 10 years.  If any console stays for 10 years or more, i think that it will be like the PSone is now, a few games here and there.  It also just occured to me that one big reason that PSone games are still coming out may be the PS2's backward compatibility, so it may depend on a newer comsole to keep its run going. Interesting...