It wasn't too long ago when Sony produced a commercial for the fictional Playstation 9 during their initial Playstation 2 campaign; that's right--the company was once so successful, it had the funds to advertise things that didn't even exist. But these were far different times, before the dot-com bubble completely burst; back in those days, you simply had to log onto the Internet and wait for padded envelopes full of money to arrive at your house (who knows where they came from). But in our modern times of economic disparity and joblessness, the evolution of entertainment technology is not one of our biggest priorities. And, according to a San Jose Mercury News report from yesterday, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division, recognizes the current problem with the standard five-year hardware cycle:
"Just coming up with something that's faster and prettier isn't going to be sufficient. The life cycle for this generation of consoles — and I'm not just talking about Xbox, I'd include Wii and PS3 as well — is probably going to be a little longer than previous generations."
If you've ever been around casual Wii gamers, then you probably realized that the one factor nearly every console war has been fought over is now completely irrelevant: graphics don't matter. And if they somehow do matter, the Wii's lack of horsepower certainly isn't holding it back. The PS3, technically the most powerful of the main three consoles, has been hurting from the very beginning by inducing sticker shock in those who may still be interested in the Playstation brand; and the drop in price from $600 to $400 still isn't low enough. Americans have recently become budget-conscious, and the fact that a new generation of hardware will undoubtedly require a TV upgrade certainly isn't helping us move to the next generation of hardware any faster.
Personally, when it comes to waiting for the latest round console, I wouldn't mind waiting until 2013--or at least until someone out there shows the common decency of giving me a full-time writing job.
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