The Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 aren't even three years old, yet they're both staring down potential replacements.
Reports surfaced on March 18 that Sony's working on a "PlayStation 4.5" console to succeed its wildly successful PlayStation 4 console (over 36 million sold thus far). It's said to come with "increased graphical power and games running at 4K resolution," according to Kotaku's Patrick Klepek, who first reported on the PS4 successor.
Earlier in March, Microsoft's chief Xbox exec Phil Spencer told a room full of press during a stage presentation that the future of the Xbox One is "hardware innovation within a generation." In English, that means you'll see the Xbox One change in terms of what it can do within this "generation" of game consoles (the life cycle of the Xbox One, before whatever comes next).
Your Xbox One may become something entirely different. It may get an add-on or add-ons that change how it works. Who knows!
In this environment of uncertainty, should you buy a PlayStation 4 or an Xbox One? The answer is no. You shouldn't buy either one.
At $300 for an Xbox One (this week only) and $350 for a PlayStation 4, neither console is an impulse purchase.
Given how vague the statements are from both Microsoft and Sony about the future of their respective consoles, it's totally unclear what the future holds for either. You could buy a PlayStation 4 today that gets replaced tomorrow by a newer, similarly priced system. And that, as they say, is a tremendous bummer.
In mid-June, both Microsoft and Sony will hold major press conferences for their Xbox and PlayStation groups during the annual E3 video game trade show in Los Angeles. At that show, it's totally possible that we'll learn more about the future of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4; we may even hear something earlier.
Alternatively, we may hear nothing at all.
That's the worst possible scenario for prospective console buyers, and it's basically where we are right now. Why buy a game console that's just going to get replaced?
This brings us to Nintendo's Wii U game console.
It's the worst-selling game console Nintendo's ever made (unless you consider the Virtual Boy a console, which you shouldn't).
It's also on the verge of being replaced by Nintendo's next console, currently known as "NX". Just this week, several alleged images of the console's gamepad showed up online.
Worse yet, these images showed up alongside a report from Japanese newspaper Nikkei that the Wii U would end production in late 2016. Nintendo denied that report, but Nintendo also has a history of denying reports from Nikkei that turn out to be true; similarly, Nikkei's missed the mark on Nintendo reports in the past.
Still, it wouldn't be a surprise to see Nintendo kill the Wii U this year alongside the introduction of a new console.
Which is to say, ya know, maybe don't buy a Wii U right this minute. Or an Xbox One. Or a PlayStation 4. Your patience will, hopefully, be rewarded.
