I hardly think last generation of consoles lasted for more than a year. They already had ancient technology when they were launched. It wasn't like that with previous ones. When you ordered a ps2, the technology inside that thing was far superior than anything you could build at home.
Yeah I understand the utility/convenience, if you don't have a proper cable provider it's nice for tv, netflix and stuff but even that is limited to a few countries. I mean I took my xbox to australia, they have crap for services.
Also lets not forget talking of utility, PC is the only platform that you can play the games and create them on. That scale of freedom is something console users will never have.
My point being,
instead of throwing the crap around running around in circles, they should build something powerful that could rival PC so that not only we have actual competition in result raising the quality of the future hardware components, but the game engines won't be bottle necked by technological limitations that are enforced by underpowered consoles each year = better quality games.
Prices will rise you say? Well that's good, less people = better community. The end.