Johnny Ringo said:
But I still think it's a bit early to launch the next gen systems - there's still fun to be had with the current gen.
1983 introduced us to the first SEGA and Nintendo consoles, 1988 and 1990 we got the Genesis and the Super Nintendo, 1994 brought us the Playstation and 1996 the Nintendo 64. 1998 the Dreamcast, 2000 the Playstation 2, 2001 the Gamecube and Xbox. 2005 the Xbox 360, 2006 the Playstation 3 and Wii.
The major players of the last few generations (which covers my life span) have trended on five years, give or take a year or two, and each generation was a pretty big leap. Compare Xbox, Gamecube, and Playstation 2 games with games for the 360, Wii (eh, never mind), and Playstation 3. It is a pretty incredible leap. If you count this generation as having begun in 2005, we are pushing a ten year gap between systems, graphics and capabilities have improved a lot during this period, but not in the leaps they have between other generations.
These consoles are using archaic technology, as far as the world of electronics is concerned. More and more people are switching to PC, for many reasons, but one of the main ones is the capabilities. Battlefield 3 on the PC vs. Battlefield 3 on the consoles is almost a shameful gap, you can barely even compare them. Games that are PC only tend to do things a console couldn't imagine. Fortunately for consoles users and unfortunately for everyone else, consoles are a large market and games are continually developed with porting to this old technology in mind.
The time for the next generation of consoles has been here for a while. Sure, there are still a lot of good games on the 360 and PS3, and more still on the way, I won't be upgrading for a long time, if ever, and I still have enough unfinished games left to play to last me a few years. But the field has been held back by stagnant technology for too long now (economy seemed to be a major factor in stretching this generation out for so long). It is passed time to see what developers can do with some more modern hardware.