My personal take is that with the PS3 and the 360 they are extremely powerful machines that are more then capable of delivering a media rich experience. They (sony/microsoft) would gain little at this point from developing a new platform. I think they have hit the law of diminishing returns when it comes to the hardware. They can't really make them much better in terms of power/graphics. TV's can only handle so much resolution and the cost for developers to take advantage of greater graphics means increased production values which also means less profit.
So it's in their best interest to continue to improve on their current platforms and help abosrb the costs and tweak it out through improved production as long as the demand continues and the longer the PS3 and the 360 are in the market the demand will still grow until everyone that wants one has bought one, which is still not the case as the last round of 360 price cuts has shown.
So generating revenue now falls to 1st party titles and licensing for 3rd party titles. Additionally they have their online market place to generate sales. Which is a huge potential. It's entirely likely that we'll see more subscription based games in the future on the console platforms for either PS3 or 360. I mean why not put WoW on Xbox or PS3. They can certainly handle it.
Now nintendo is a slightly different beast. They are profitable on their consoles. They could develop a next generation Wii that can compete power wise with the PS3 and the 360. But in order for them to sell that to the public they'd have to give proof to the hardcore gamers that there is an advantage to the new console. Right now, and I'm speaking as a Wii lover who's just snapped up a 360, there is a serious lack of hardcore gaming on the Wii. So before I would even consider buying another Wii they'd have to prove beyond a doubt that it's going to deliver more then yet another party game. I'm also not suggesting they should release a 2nd Wii anytime soon. But in 3 years from now the market may be ready again for Nintendo.
I don't think you are ever going to see the consoles drop out of the market. Consoles are a party box, computers you can't do that without a LAN. Who is going to carry rigs around set up networks all the time when you can usually find a console game that everyone likes and just takes one console and a few remotes.
The other thing is that computer based games cause a massive cost because you need the computer; if consoles do a vanishing act then all that is left for serious video gamers is the computer. Granted the average age for people that play video games starts around 19 and goes on into the 20s, there is still a large portion of the market that isn't in there. Also generally speaking, people are cheap....pretty darn cheap when it really comes to it.
When looking at the cost of playing games on the PC versus a console they realize how many over priced games they can buy for the cost of the PC, as well as the fact that if they already have another computer they can usually stream their media into their TV through the console. Plus with a PS3 you get a blue ray player with the console.
With the rate that most of the video and CPU cores are going you might see a hybrid console pop up, but maybe not.
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My personal take is that with the PS3 and the 360 they are extremely powerful machines that are more then capable of delivering a media rich experience. They (sony/microsoft) would gain little at this point from developing a new platform. I think they have hit the law of diminishing returns when it comes to the hardware. They can't really make them much better in terms of power/graphics. TV's can only handle so much resolution and the cost for developers to take advantage of greater graphics means increased production values which also means less profit.
So it's in their best interest to continue to improve on their current platforms and help abosrb the costs and tweak it out through improved production as long as the demand continues and the longer the PS3 and the 360 are in the market the demand will still grow until everyone that wants one has bought one, which is still not the case as the last round of 360 price cuts has shown.
So generating revenue now falls to 1st party titles and licensing for 3rd party titles. Additionally they have their online market place to generate sales. Which is a huge potential. It's entirely likely that we'll see more subscription based games in the future on the console platforms for either PS3 or 360. I mean why not put WoW on Xbox or PS3. They can certainly handle it.
Now nintendo is a slightly different beast. They are profitable on their consoles. They could develop a next generation Wii that can compete power wise with the PS3 and the 360. But in order for them to sell that to the public they'd have to give proof to the hardcore gamers that there is an advantage to the new console. Right now, and I'm speaking as a Wii lover who's just snapped up a 360, there is a serious lack of hardcore gaming on the Wii. So before I would even consider buying another Wii they'd have to prove beyond a doubt that it's going to deliver more then yet another party game. I'm also not suggesting they should release a 2nd Wii anytime soon. But in 3 years from now the market may be ready again for Nintendo.
The other thing is that computer based games cause a massive cost because you need the computer; if consoles do a vanishing act then all that is left for serious video gamers is the computer. Granted the average age for people that play video games starts around 19 and goes on into the 20s, there is still a large portion of the market that isn't in there. Also generally speaking, people are cheap....pretty darn cheap when it really comes to it.
When looking at the cost of playing games on the PC versus a console they realize how many over priced games they can buy for the cost of the PC, as well as the fact that if they already have another computer they can usually stream their media into their TV through the console. Plus with a PS3 you get a blue ray player with the console.
With the rate that most of the video and CPU cores are going you might see a hybrid console pop up, but maybe not.