I'm wondering how you estimate the lifetime sales of a console. I tried guesstimate thinking that say multiplying with 8 first year sales: thinking that with the losses they're having now they can't afford to pull it off the market in less than 5 years, but with the lower price over time sales should steadily increase. However I'm wondering if this increase is somewhat linear over the years or does it do doubling? I know that year 3-4 of a console's lifecycle should have it's mature big titles released which would tempt me to think that's when most sales happen... but then again as it grows older it's cheaper and with a bigger library. I've read many places people thinking that they'll come out with ps4 soone than expected (it is tempting to think seeing how the actual rendering/graphics card performance is less than teh stellar people expected)but i think they won't do it both because it doesnt make financiar sense to pull it out before they profit from it (then again MS did it with xbox...) but also because with a generation of internate based stuff a solid platform will be important. I think MMOs like the ncsoft deals might turn out to be *very* important. Even if they did release ps4 sooner than expected I think they'd keep the ps3 as a solid standard machine like they're now doing with the ps2: a good bet in evolving countries, which though not big buyers now could turn into a huge market if caught.
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