The real reasons behind mid-gen refreshes

[Bofferbrauer]

For Sony, an effort to sell their 4K TVs and their VR. Since VR needs twice the frames per second, it's obvious that the PS4 pro went with almost exactly twice the graphics power to execute this

For Microsoft on the other hand, it's more to keep up with their competition, both on the console market with the PS4 Pro and from Gaming PCs. While the latter is certainly also a reason for the PS4, it's probably far from being a focus point.

But to keep up with PCs is a botched attempt for both of them. The Jaguar was intended as an Ultra Low Power consumption chip and it clearly shows, as it's acting like a handbrake even on the base models already. It's limited amount of calculations it can output also means that 60fps would be too overwhelming for it most of the time as the CPU would also need to make twice as much calculations per second. The RAM hasn't been expended much or at all, which excludes higher detail and higher resolution textures than the base model. In other words, the upgraded hardware can't run faster or have shinier graphics than the base models, solely having to rely on higher resolutions to make a difference. Which is probably why Sony insisted that without a 4K TV you would be better off with the base model before the release of the Pro.

For both of them it is a double-edged sword. When PS5 and Xbox TWO (or whatever it will be called) roll out, will you buy them - or will you wait for the upgraded versions to come out? There will probably be quite a few who will hold back to wait for the better version, cutting off the initial sales of their next console. This as also happened before: The Megadrive/Genesis got both a CD and then the 32X upgrades before the Saturn rolled out. But people where vary about the upgrades and hold back on buying the saturn until they saw this was really their next machine and it's there to stay - at which point it was already miles behind the concurrence.

Nintendo is also hit by this. The 3DS got also a mid-term upgrade, just like the DS got with the DSi. The Switch will most probably follow that same route too. But on a handheld system, this seems to be more accepted, maybe because of the concurrence to the smartphones.

A big question in all those upgrades is if they will ever drop the support of the base model? Even though a handful of 3DS games are exclusive to the New 3DS, support of the base model never stopped totally. However, trying to play a recent 3DS game on a base 3DS is often rather painful. It runs, but with all kinds of issues. I fully expect this to happen to PS4 and Xbox ONE too in the future.