Regardless of when the new consoles release, they will cost 400-500 either way. There's no point in stretching generations any longer than they go on for now,
There would be a point though. There would be more significant differences. If you wait 5 years then release a new console, that's only 5 years of technology improvement and it costs you 500. Or you wait 10 years, so you get 10 years of technology improvement and it still costs you 500.
The sooner new consoles release, the sooner their price will drop.
But you're forced into it if you want to play anything new. So every 5 or so years you're essentially given a ticket by the console gaming community telling you to shell out a few hundred dollars if you want to play anything remotely new. Whereas my computer is almost 7 years old and I only just had to replace the graphics card. Not even because it wasn't relevant anymore, it was a little old but could still play every single new release. (It died due to overheating from a dust buildup, I lived in an old basement for most of those 7 years.)
New consoles aren't just a boost to graphics and performance, they open a lot of doors on what gameplay experiences are possible. A ton of games made today simply wouldn't be possible on the 360 and PS3 and the same will be true in a few years for the current systems when games are actively developed with the next generation in mind.
Today, yes. The first few years of the PS4 and XBone being released? No, not really. The vast majority of games being released would have been more than fine on the previous generation. The ones that wouldn't have been ok were the companies who admitted to trying to max out what you can get from the console. So it was extra effort on the developers part to make the upgrade worth it.
Asking for new consoles to be delayed is asking for gaming technology and creativity to stagnate.
I would disagree strongly. It's not asking to stagnate. It's asking the console world to not do what we always complain the phone world does where they force you into new buys arbitrarily. Once again, huge amount of the games released for the first few years would have been fine on the previous gen. it feels like an incredibly pointless gate that closes on you unless you keep throwing money at it.
I think the amount of time between the PS3 and PS4 was a little short. It wasn't stupidly short, and it was much closer to acceptable than some of the previous gens (let's take a moment to laugh at how stupid the PS1 to PS2 jump was for a long time). However, there could still have been more improvements to make that price worth it. You're getting $100 or so in upgrades, but are forced to spend the full $500-$600. I would rather get $400 worth of improvements if I'm still being forced to spend the full $500. With computers you can at least just buy the $100 of improvements and spend another $50-$100 getting them all installed (or instal it yourself for free).
If Sony would let me send in my PS3 to get the $100-$200 of improvements added to it and charge an additional $75 install fee, then I'd actually consider trying to keep current with console gens. But as it stands now forcing your customers into buying a whole new one or not being relevant is a bit of a shitty practice.
We hate when phone companies do it. We hate when TV companies do it. We only tolerate it with console companies because most of their buyers are well off enough to be able to afford it. But any time someone tries to make it more inclusive (and less stupid), everyone wants to come out to defend the console companies.
I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to get these companies to realize the people they're selling to are people with real expenses and other wants. The games themselves already cost quite a lot nowadays. That may be warranted with how good some of them are, but it's just continuously raising the price to take part in the console world.