I've been thinking about this for awhile. A lot of people see Halo 3 as the game that will help the Xbox 360 regain the lead in the console "race" or at least increase sales. But what will Microsoft do if the game only mildly helps push additional consoles? What if the crowd that lives for all things Halo is mostly the same crowd that already owns a 360?

Let me get to why I feel this way in the first place. There has been some research done on console attach rates early in a consoles life, and there is evidence that a high attach rate early on in a console's life cycle may not be a good thing. This may seem counterintuitive since more games per system means more money for developers that will in turn lead to more games and so on and so forth. The problem is that this can also be a sign the console is only being adopted by the hardcore crowd. I personally feel that this holiday season is going to push the 360 past the hardcore only crowd, but that high attach rate still sticks in my mind....well that and the fact that the hardware seems to always break.

Anyway, back to my original question. If the 360 is indeed only selling to the hardcore crowd, and Halo 3 (along with the holiday lineup) doesn't help push any additional units, what will Microsoft do? Do they simply finish out the current gen and then sell off the business, or are there still enough potential profits in an entertainment center to keep them going?

I for one know I won't continue buying 360 games if there is even a hint that MS will drop support for the system, but I still am not sure if they've gotten accepted completely by the mainstream culture. At least they've surpassed the Dreamcast in sales.

Added picture so it would fit with dvddesign's guidelines