Microsoft Corp. sees potential for Xbox 360 game console to stay on the market for more than five years and still be successful. The example of such triumph is claimed to be Sony PlayStation 2, which celebrated its seventh birthday this October and was sold in 120 million quantity worldwide.

“Look at the PS2, they’ve gone long-time and seem to have pretty good legs on what they are doing. If we were able to do that, as CFO I think that’s great, because every year you draw it out you increase profitability,” said Mindy Mount, chief financial officer for Microsoft’s entertainment division at a conference hosted by BMO Capital Markets, reports Reuters news-agency.

According to Ms. Mount, the transition to high-definition that was completed with the transition to Xbox 360 will allow the latest game console by the world’s largest maker of software to live on the market for a considerable amount of time since, apart from high-definition, she does not see any crucial technologies on the horizon.

“At this point from the technological perspective, there are some real advances […] that make it worth having a next-generation console. Right now there aren’t that many things on the horizon that you think, wow, that’s going to be a game-changer,” Ms. Mount said.

Last year the company already said that it aims to sell 90 million of its Xbox 360 game consoles eventually, which is less than sales of PlayStation or PlayStation 2 game machines. However, given that Sony’s PlayStation 3 has been selling very slow, Microsoft had all chances to sell tens of millions of its considerably more affordable Xbox 360 consoles.

Nevertheless, as Nintendo Wii is gaining popularity among all types of gamers, chances for Microsoft to capture PlayStation gamers with the Xbox 360 become weaker. On the other hand, since Xbox 360 is considerably more advanced than Wii from technological standpoint, it can truly survive for longer time as its rival from Nintendo.