Speaking to a the BMO Capital Markets conference and reported by Reuters news agency, Microsoft's entertainment division chief financial officer, Mindy Mount, suggested that Microsoft is looking to emulate Playstation 2's prolonged lifespan with its Xbox 360.
"Look at the PS2; they've gone long-time and seem to have pretty good legs on what they are doing", she commented. "If we were able to do that, as CFO I think that's great, because every year you draw it out you increase profitability".
The Microsoft executive also expressed her opinion that there is no need to develop a new generation of consoles until there is enough hardware improvements to justify it. "At this point from the technological perspective, there are some real advances ... that make it worth having a next-generation console. Right now there aren't that many things on the horizon that you think, wow, that's going to be a game-changer."
The original Xbox was criticized for having a short lifespan of four, compared to Playstation 2 which is still selling very well, more than seven years after its launch.
