I happen to believe that this cycle will indeed last longer improvements in technology and delivery are definately some of the reasons I believe that.
Extract from the Article which rung true for me.
"We think it's highly premature to be thinking of the cycle ending until all of these consoles are well below the USD 199 mark," says Greenwald. "Furthermore, 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)."
3
Extract from the Article which rung true for me.
"We think it's highly premature to be thinking of the cycle ending until all of these consoles are well below the USD 199 mark," says Greenwald. "Furthermore, 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)."