Sony's PlayStation 4 was launched 7 years after its predecessor and Microsoft's Xbox One launched eight years after Xbox 360 did. Both companies have made statements promising to support their consoles for ten years to come. However, this doesn't mean that a new generation of consoles won't launch within those years.
In fact, EA Studios executive vice-president Patrick Söderlund believes that Xbox One and PlayStation 4 will have shorter lifecycles than their predecessors.
"This console cycle may have gone on a little bit longer than I would have wanted," he explained , "... a five, six year gap is what I expect going forward."
One of the more interesting side effects of Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3's prolonged lifecycle is that great games were released on those consoles just before the new generation was released. "you have seen games like The Last of Us and GTA V at the end of a cycle which perhaps you would not have expected a few years ago," noted Söderlund.
