Makers of the PlayStation 2 (PS2) and Xbox are confident that gamers will be playing their machines for a few more years. Sony expects to sell a further eight million PS2s in Europe alone over the next 12 months and Microsoft says it will continue to manufacture millions more Xboxes.

Judging by the number of games at E3, game publishers believe there is life left in the current consoles.

"Everyone moved off the PSOne onto the PlayStation 2 too quickly. We won't make that mistake again," EA's European boss Gerhard Florin told the BBC News website.
"The games will phase out very slowly. The industry has learnt that moving away too quickly is costly."