Bach: Xbox not yet at mid-age

As Xbox 360 enters its fifth year on the market in times past we would typically be bracing ourselves for the arrival of its successor – but Microsoft reckons that its popular console may not have even reached middle age.

I think in many ways we’re still on the upside of the console lifecycle,” the president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division Robbie Bach told CBC.

Historically, the content cycle has been driven by graphic technology. There’s still plenty of power available in the Xbox 360, there’s still plenty of power available in the PS3. Nintendo probably can’t say that.

But the console world has changed fundamentally in a very important way – innovation doesn’t require new hardware. The fact that we can deliver a new Xbox Live service every year is a very powerful thing and completely changes the experience without changing the console, without requiring the industry to reboot every five years.

The fact that we can introduce something like Project Natal and have it work on every Xbox 360 and create an entirely new way to interact with the system speaks to all of that. For the industry, I think this is a tremendously positive thing. For consumers I think it’s tremendously positive.”