Only four years separated the original Xbox from its next-gen successor - and some of us have been paying the price for that hurried development since then, eh? However the next, next-generation of Xbox hardware won’t be quite so quick coming to market, says a Microsoft bigwig.

This minor, if not altogether unexpected bombshell is dropped by MS President of Entertainment and Devices Division (nice job title!) Robbie Bach in a recent edition of the San Jose Mercury News.

“Just coming up with something that's faster and prettier isn't going to be sufficient," he says, “The lifecycle for this generation of consoles, and I'm not just talking about Xbox, I'd include Wii and PS3 as well, is probably going to be a little longer than previous generations."

So what are we looking at here? Alas Bach doesn’t go into specifics. That said, it looks like another four-year lifecycle is almost certainly not on the cards this time around, and mentioning the PS3 in his statement could be read as an indication that MS is looking at a ten-year residency for the Xbox 360 too.

That’s just too horrible to contemplate. Please say it ain’t so, Robbie!