Shane Kim: Xbox 360 has 7 year lifespan

The original Xbox didn't last all that long when you look back at the history of the console and, as an owner of big black box, that was admittedly quite disappointing. So disappointing in fact that some people are worried that the Xbox 720 might soon appear and replace the ubiquitous towel warmer.

No fear though - Microsoft boss-man Shane Kim has said that he believes the current plan for the Xbox 360 is for it to have a seven year life time for consumers, which is slightly less than Sony's plan for a ten-year PlayStation 3.

"We said from the beginning that we expect the Xbox 360 to have a long tail. Clearly we didn't do that with the original Xbox, which was a strategic decision we made. Admittedly, we don't have any experience doing this, but we're pretty confident 360 will have a long tail," said Kim in an interview with CVG.

"You're going to continue to see technical innovation, it might be additional capabilities to the current format — but honestly we haven't made those kind of decisions yet," Kim continued.

"As far as technical limitations? We're not seeing those. I think there's the potential for more multi-disc titles, we've already shipped a few of those already. But I don't think this is so drastic that people will start saying that Microsoft missed a trick with not using Blu-ray. I just don't believe that...What we've been able to see with the vast majority of titles on Xbox 360, is the range of experiences that haven't been restricted with the lack of a hard drive and a larger capacity disc."

That's all well and good Shane, but at the moment we're only two and a bit years in to that supposed seven year lifetime. As technology advances faster and faster, might the Xbox 360 get left behind? Let us know what you think in the forums.