The Xbox 360 will last longer than the Xbox. This much should be obvious to everyone. The original Xbox was killed off early for two reasons;-
The GPU deal they worked out with nVidia and the bundled hard drive meant they could never turn a profit on the device
and
They wanted to move everybody over to the 360 ASAP.
That's it. With the 360 they have a much better set up to turn a profit on low cost hardware, they'll have a healthy last gen ecosystem which will make them money whilst launching their next "system" and this generation will be longer than the last.
So there is every reason to believe the 360 will be selling in 2011 / 2012 and possibly beyond. At what rate, will be the question.
@oznerol, Yes, it is US only data. Yes, years 3-4 are generally "peak" years. Yes, X360 lifespan should be shorter than PS2 (see how XBOX # died right after X360, unlike PS2 sales which didn't die after PS3 launch). Yes, X360 GLS should be lower than PS2's, and current simEx price reflect that scenario. However, the big question is : How low should it go ? What is your estimate ? and why ?
Anyway, yes - years 3/4 are generally the "peak" years. I don't see the 360's life being any longer than the PS2, regardless of what Microsoft says, and it's not selling nearly as well.
Let's look at XBOX US sales, starting from year 1 : 1,402,436 (2001) 3,169,614 3,103,570 3,812,265 2,236,073 391,876 1,313
Did you noticed a trend in that yearly # ? If not, let me give you PS2's : 1,101,038 (2000) 6,179,578 8,387,491 6,308,783 4,389,259 5,517,153 4,713,238 3,945,982 2,502,298
Then compare those two with X360's : 607,343 (2005) 3,927,190 4,618,939 4,735,400
It would need to hold its current sales levels for the next 3 years to even have a chance at 60+ million.
If the 360 is still selling over a million units in December of 2011, I will be greatly surprised. Hell, if they outperform December 08 numbers in 09 I would be surprised.
28 million Xbox 360s puts us at almost 50% of our GLS forecast. Given the recent article that MSFT intends to stretch the Xbox 360 out longer, the console could reach the current GLS forecast with similar sales momentum in 2 years. Sales at this point are much larger than the first year. After all the complaints with GLS, it may actually be quite realistic.
Seven of the top ten most rented titles in 2008 were Xbox 360 games, the remaining three were Wii titles, according to a survey by Rentrak and Home Video Essentials.
Rentrak used Home Video Essentials, which measures consumer rental activity and grosses on more than 65,000 film and video game properties, looking at retail, online and kiosk locations. The service tracks more than one billion rental transactions a year.
4
The GPU deal they worked out with nVidia and the bundled hard drive meant they could never turn a profit on the device
and
They wanted to move everybody over to the 360 ASAP.
That's it. With the 360 they have a much better set up to turn a profit on low cost hardware, they'll have a healthy last gen ecosystem which will make them money whilst launching their next "system" and this generation will be longer than the last.
So there is every reason to believe the 360 will be selling in 2011 / 2012 and possibly beyond. At what rate, will be the question.