Talk:TES 64/@comment-76.188.235.216-20130518011013/@comment-8961248-20130518100442

I think he means that it has a lifetime of 9 years, which is a lot IRL. The actual console only lasted 6 years.

I suppose it's a gameplay concession, because you need to have enough consoles on the market to give choice to the player, and their lifetimes must be long enough so that you can develop several games for the platform.