The PS3 Will Have a 10-Year Life

In an article from March, we talked about the 11-year lifespan of the Sony PS1 and the apparent decade-long lifespan of the PS2. As many of you now know, in an August 29 interview, Kazuo Hirai (President, Sony Computer Entertainment of America) said he expects the same for the PS3:

• The PS3 will be around for 10 years: “We look at our products having a 10-year life cycle, which we’ve proven with the PlayStation. Therefore, the PlayStation 3 is going to be a console that’s going to be with you again for 10 years.”
• Unlike other companies, Sony does not follow the 5-year industry standard: “We’re not going to ask the consumers to suddenly buy another PlayStation console in five years’ time, and basically have their investment go by the wayside.”
• Sony is always a bit late: “If you look back in history, I think everybody realizes that we’ve never been first to bring a console to the market. PlayStation was not first and PlayStation 2 was not first to market. As a matter of fact, PlayStation Portable was not first to market in the portable space and PlayStation3, as you mentioned, is not the first to market either.”
• A hint of doubt about the 10-year plan: “I can’t speculate on when we might come out with a new console after PlayStation 3.”

This news should have filtered to the farthest reaches of the Internet by now, but what does it really mean? In the same interview he proclaims 10 years, and then he also says he can’t be sure that there won’t be a PS4 within 5 years! We’re not know-it-all market analysts (who I swear just flip a coin because some of them are wrong half the time), so we’ll give you the wisdom of your peers:

• The skeptics among you will say that this is all the raving of a Sony executive, so it can’t be taken as truth (of course he’ll say nice things about his product).
• Some of you say that Sony will release a PS4 as soon as the Xbox 720 comes out.
• Some of you point out that support for the PS1 noticeably dropped after the release of the PS2 (so you say the same thing will happen to the PS2 when the PS3 comes out, and the same thing will happen to the PS3 when the PS4 comes out – never mind what Sony execs say about 10-year plans).
• Some of you say that 10 years is too long for a console; it’ll be old and boring by then.
• But for those of you who plan to fork out as much as $600 for a PS3 (instead of the maybe-less-than-$300 for the Wii), isn’t it great that Sony is planning (at least for now) a whole decade of value for that money?

In an article from March, we talked about the 11-year lifespan of the Sony PS1 and the apparent decade-long lifespan of the PS2. As many of you now know, in an August 29 interview, Kazuo Hirai (President, Sony Computer Entertainment of America) said he expects the same for the PS3:

• The PS3 will be around for 10 years: “We look at our products having a 10-year life cycle, which we’ve proven with the PlayStation. Therefore, the PlayStation 3 is going to be a console that’s going to be with you again for 10 years.”
• Unlike other companies, Sony does not follow the 5-year industry standard: “We’re not going to ask the consumers to suddenly buy another PlayStation console in five years’ time, and basically have their investment go by the wayside.”
• Sony is always a bit late: “If you look back in history, I think everybody realizes that we’ve never been first to bring a console to the market. PlayStation was not first and PlayStation 2 was not first to market. As a matter of fact, PlayStation Portable was not first to market in the portable space and PlayStation3, as you mentioned, is not the first to market either.”
• A hint of doubt about the 10-year plan: “I can’t speculate on when we might come out with a new console after PlayStation 3.”

This news should have filtered to the farthest reaches of the Internet by now, but what does it really mean? In the same interview he proclaims 10 years, and then he also says he can’t be sure that there won’t be a PS4 within 5 years! We’re not know-it-all market analysts (who I swear just flip a coin because some of them are wrong half the time), so we’ll give you the wisdom of your peers:

• The skeptics among you will say that this is all the raving of a Sony executive, so it can’t be taken as truth (of course he’ll say nice things about his product).
• Some of you say that Sony will release a PS4 as soon as the Xbox 720 comes out.
• Some of you point out that support for the PS1 noticeably dropped after the release of the PS2 (so you say the same thing will happen to the PS2 when the PS3 comes out, and the same thing will happen to the PS3 when the PS4 comes out – never mind what Sony execs say about 10-year plans).
• Some of you say that 10 years is too long for a console; it’ll be old and boring by then.
• But for those of you who plan to fork out as much as $600 for a PS3 (instead of the maybe-less-than-$300 for the Wii), isn’t it great that Sony is planning (at least for now) a whole decade of value for that money?