I don't buy the "can only afford one console" excuse either, there is no justification for it. I worked with a guy in his late twenties who was exactly like you described, after months of being in the same office I used to dread the topic of games coming up, was so glad when he quit
I think you're missing something here, "can only afford one console" doesn't always mean money. Time is a precious resource as we get older.
I'm in my mid 30's now - money isn't really an issue and I'm not married or with a girlfriend and my time is limited. How the hell can your average gamer afford the TIME not the money, to know what games are best to play, on both platforms?
Bear in mind too, the entire gaming industry has pretty much messed with gamers so much in the last 5 years that to just buy a console and a game is now almost 'dumb' - it's unfortunate but you need to know which damned edition to buy, where to buy it from, WHEN to buy it, which store has the better price but will still honor blah blah deal (and so on and so forth)
Being an educated gamer is a huge investment of time. "Do I actually want the new <xx> game? This article says it's looking better than the previous game but this podcast tells me that they really fucked up <zz>"
I owned both consoles of the current generation and found that the exclusives for one of them just weren't my cup of tea (I got my fix on the PC for those types of games) - so I sold the less used console and stuck to one. Sure this limited my options significantly but I figured that if it doesn't come to my chosen platform (or PC) well... I'm just going to have to miss out.
It means one less second hand console to sell or take space in a cupboard in 18 months time, it means less cable mess behind the TV, it means a heck of a lot less internet research.
It's limiting and some would say closed minded - I actually genuinely find it liberating, I've cut off the limb, it's gone - it's done and I've enjoyed the experience - I intend to stick with this 1 console policy in future, hence :
Long story short, I'm here to see if MS has what it takes to make me choose them next round as my single, only platform.