With the all-but-confirmed rumor of Sony's upgraded PS4, the Neo, coming this fall, it seems as if we may be heading or a time when consoles receive incremental upgrades (a la Apple) instead of being a one-size-fits-all device for several years. If you own a PS4, will you be upgrading? What are your thoughts on this business model in general?
Yeah, yeah, Apple gets a lot of flack for this kind of thing. Although, I don't know why. Nearly everything else has a new model every year. TVs, cars, washing machines, whatever. You don't have to buy it. Video game consoles were unique in that they had "generations". There may be refinements in hardware over that generation (looking at you Nintendo portables), but it's generally cosmetic or superficial. Until now. The PS4K, Xbone2, and NX seem to be the start of a new generation, a whole lot earlier than expected. As Steam gains traction and PC gaming continues to take off, console hardware will have to keep up I guess to support multiplatform ease. But then, what's the point of having a console really?
I hardly think that the leaked specs of the Neo are enough to constitute a new generation though. It's a PS4 with an overclocked CPU, slightly better GPU, and more memory bandwidth. Pretty much the same hardware, just slightly upgraded. I think it's a sign of the change in philosophy with the consoles this gen though. Traditionally, consoles have pushed hardware forward and have been well beyond high end PCs. This gen, the consoles were outdated at release - a low to mid end PC could smoke them at launch, and the gap between consoles and PCs has only gotten bigger. And I'm not sure that this upgrade will do much to bring them closer in line.
Probably wouldn't. I'm not fond of it though, anyway. Part of the appeal of consoles is that everyone who bought one is guaranteed the same experience. The game is going to work at its optimal performance for the hardware. Gauranteed. You don't have to worry about upgraded or different components, or having some kind of compromised experience. But now if we have to buy console revisions more often to compensate, ehhhhhh.... The buzz seems to be though that developers don't want to build for the new tech yet though (or at least don't want to have to support both tiers), so we'll see how this takes off. I'm also concerned that Nintendo may not have seen this mid-gen relaunch coming and they may yet another underpowered console as a result.
Were you expecting them to not have an under-powered console either way, honestly? If the rumors are to be trusted (from Emily Rogers and others), the NX console is Xbox One level at best, and that system is noticeably weaker than PS4 to begin with. And considering they'd be releasing halfway through the generation, they'd only have a couple years of being on relatively equal footing before PS5/Xbox Two/whatever even without the Neo/Scorpio upgrades.
I didn't think the NX would be the best of the three, but somewhere between the Xbox One and PS4, yeah. I like Emily Rogers; she is reliable, but everything is still just a rumour until it is announced. It has been delayed and missing the holiday season sales. They're up to something alright
After all the talk of Neo and the unveiling of Scorpio, I've come to the conclusion that, no matter what they say, this is them rushing a new generation of consoles. It seems like releasing grossly underpowered systems at the beginning of this gen came back to bite them in the ass, and with gamers in 2016 demanding VR and 4K and flawless performance, the Xbox One and PS4 just couldn't keep up. So instead of just saving all that for the next generation in 2019-2020 or whenever it was due, MS and Sony are rushing a new gen in 2017 under the guise of an "incremental upgrade."
Yeah, but, the amount that the PS4 has sold thus far is staggering. It's not just the core gamers. There is a significant breadth there. And a greater market cares not about 4K (a competing and soon to be outdated resolution standard in the long-tail against 8K), and VR (requires additional investment in hardware, looks ridiculous, hasn't really demonstrated gameplay value beyond novelty). If you're a core gamer and you want to experiment, that just go the PC route. The point of the console is for a minimum level of consistency. If we're going to have tiered generations now, this isn't going to work out well.
I don't really mind the idea of incremental upgrades like this simply because it makes it easier on gamers on a budget who want to continue to play in the same online circles but aren't always able to upgrade consoles until well after release. It kind of prevents people getting left behind for months since, from my understanding, despite the better specs these "updated" consoles are still using the exact same games and connectivity. It's not really a new generation either because of that. I don't think you can really call this a new generation when you can play the same games on both it and the normal PS4. Then again, I'm pretty much the polar opposite of an expert.
