I am a bit surprised with the way that people are underwhelmed by the jump. I believe it's more to do with the diminishing returns to the perception of performance, rather than the actual technical achievement. Because I see that the jump is as big as it has always been, if not bigger... Such claims arise especially because of a much easier comparison to the PC architecture this time around instead of propriety and mystical designs, which are harder to prove otherwise. Let's remember that compared to the 7th Generation console designs, the vast majority of developers are relatively much happier this time around, and the technicalities aside, the PC ports to the next-gen consoles look relatively way better without serious sacrificies.
In short, the next gen consoles (or at least PS4) is not weak at all but more than capable, because...
a) Those Consoles come with octo-core processors, which is well beyond the main stream pc with dual core. It's true that those cores have relatively poor single threaded performance but with the sufficient level of parallelism and low level calls, CPUs had never been this fast in relative terms (compared to PCs). So the CPU performance will never be an issue. Also keep in mind that the CPU performance improvements have slowed tremendously at the last decade.
b) The amount of RAM (8 GB) is well beyond the main stream PC (4-6 GB) today, which had never happened. Most games are not even programmed to run on more than 3 GB, and this is the first time in history, where the console ports don't have to be downsized at all. In comparison, 1 GB was the mainstream RAM when the 7th Gen consoles arrived with only 1/2 RAM including the graphics, and 128 MB was the mainstream when PS2 arrived with 32 MB! Also today we have so much RAM on our PCs that the capacity increases came to a crawl.
c) 500 GB, although still may be not much for today's games, is relatively abundant compared to the debut with the 7th Gen. consoles.
d) The GPU seems to be archiles heel, at least with the XB1. However, it's unfair to the PS4 as it seems to be just fine with 1080p and up to 60 fps. We know that the graphics will improve over time, squeezing either better graphics or more stable performance. Given that most TVs today are not capable of producing resolutions greater than 1080p, there really is no point in putting a higher GPU than what PS4 has over the long run.
e) PS4 employs a super fast GDDR5, equivalent to the PC tech, but just much more of it. Games, which are not designed with this in mind will not magically look better, but they will come in time. Couple this with many exciting technologies, none of which has been implemented yet, which are more likely to see on consoles than on the PC.
In short, PS4 is the most balanced machine out there for the long term, and is more than capable to serve as long as PS3 did. XB1, on the other hand, although similar, is crippled by its inefficient design, with respect to the RAM Bandwidth. If only XB1 had incorporated GDDR5 instead of DDR3 + ESRAM (or at least a DDR3+GDDR5 solution similar to PS3), ditching the Kinect, things would be much rosier for it now.
Edit (1) :
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
STEAM SURVEY RESULTS:
Most Common Gamer PC (Not an average PC, which is way lower!):
OS Version: Windows 7 64 bit
System RAM:
8 GB (Most Common)
6 GB (Average)
4 GB (Median)
Intel CPU Speeds :2.3 Ghz to 2.69 Ghz
Physical CPUs : 2 cpus
Video Card Description : Intel HD Graphics 4000
VRAM :1024 MB
Primary Display Resolution :1920 x 1080
Free Hard Drive Space : 250 GB to 499 GB
Total Hard Drive Space : 250 GB to 499 GB
* Now on the console side, we have 1080p TVs, which usually cannot view more than 60 frames, so there absolutely is no point in producing better than that on Modern Consoles...
* The CPUs, on the vast majority of the time, are not the bottleneck, and because those are gaming machines, not general purpose PCs, there is no point in putting a CPU on a console, that is faster than necessary, as long it is not a bottleneck on the games, and have sufficient performance for other tasks such as Bluray playback etc...
* RAM is abundant. It's a 16x increase from the earlier generation, which is unprecedented.
PS1 ( 2+1+0.5 MB) => PS2 (32+4 MB) => PS3 (256 + 256 MB) => PS4 (8 GB).
If you go ahead and check, the relative PC RAM with each generation was...
with PS1 : 8 MB, with PS2 : 128 MB, with PS3 : 1 GB, with PS4 : 4-6 GB...
so you see, PS4, for the first time in history has more RAM than the mainstream PC!
* Given that there is no point in producing an output greater than 1080p 60fps, the PS4 GPU has already shown that it's capable of 1080p and 60 fps, although not always at the same time, which will come by time. There really is no room beyond 1080p 60fps (which PCs may be capable of, but consoles just don't need)...
PS4 is easily outperformed by a relatively easy to configure desktop or a laptop today, nobody denies that.
However, I am trying to explain that PS4 is not a weak console, and is actually much faster than all previous Playstations, relatively to the competition of their era.
In other words, PC was and will always be faster than the consoles. However, the power gap with PS4 is not greater but actually smaller compared to the earlier playstations. To see that, just compare the games of each generation (PC to PS), especially the first generation. Playstation had never been this capable
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Edit (4)
A PC Myth : http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-card-myths,3694.html#xtor=RSS-998
Most people seem to ignore what I am actually saying and instead understand it the way they like it. Let me repeat, I am not claiming consoles have equal performance with high end PCs or there is no difference. Please read clearly....
The visible performance gap between PS4 and PCs at the maximum possibble resolution on the console of the era (dictated by the TV Standards, which is 1080p today, but was 720p last gen) is minimal. This gap used to be a lot larger with the PS3 vs PC, or PS2 vs PC, or PS1 vs PC. So, for its era, Playstation 4 is the most capable of all playstations. So yes, that is not a weak console at all, serves its purpose.
And yes, although X360 had a really good GPU for its time, it still had a significant disadvantage compared to the PC for various reasons, even at 720p or lower (the standard of the time). The same is true for PS3.
Once you settle for a highly reasonable 1080p to play, PS4 is way more than capable, and that is unless you want to go higher resolutions, which are just not possible on most TVs, and pointless for a console anyway. So if you don't game on a console any more, it's not because PS4 is weak (which it isn't) but it's because the common TV resolution is just not enough for you and/or you're spoiled by the ultra clarity provided to you by high end PC equipment.
Playstation 5 vs XBox Series Market Share Estimates
Regional Analysis (only MS and Sony Consoles)
Europe => XB1 : 23-24 % vs PS4 : 76-77%
N. America => XB1 : 49-52% vs PS4 : 48-51%
Global => XB1 : 32-34% vs PS4 : 66-68%
