Now is the perfect time to buy a PlayStation 4 or Xbox One

No caveats, no equivocations: Now is the time. This is the holiday where you finally buy that PlayStation 4 or Xbox One you've been thinking about!

"But aren't these consoles nearly three years old now?" Yes, friend, they are. And that's precisely why now is the right time to buy one.

This is how the video game console market usually works:

• A game console-maker like Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo announces a console, a release date, and a price.
• The console launches at a relatively high price, and that price comes down across the next 5-10 years.
• As console sales decline, the cycle repeats.

We are at the perfect point in that cycle where console prices have come down dramatically, the hardware has been minorly revised to work optimally, and game developers are putting out their best work.

More directly: We're at the perfect point in the game console cycle where you can buy a system knowing you'll get years of use out of it. Here's why.