Nintendo will have to live with a console that only has 1st party titles. It means that it's basicaly going to be a Wii U 2.

So Nintendo will make money from amiibo/mobile next generation....

Yes, I don't want it. I want to buy a machine that I'm sure that will run tons of games for many years.

Microsoft will end up forcing us to keep upgrading.

Man I would feel bad if I bought a Slim and there's a more powerful one coming out soon after.

I might wait until Spring 2017 then...

Also want a Elite bundle, tested the Elite controller a few weeks ago, 2nd best feeling I ever had in my hands!

The research and development costs to bring 4 new consoles (streaming or not) to market... and the server infrastructure, ect...

That would be quite costly.

People that expect a "short" generation , with a new Xbox Two & Playstation 5, are ignoreing the facts looking them in the face.

If even half of that is true, theres just no way, 2018 is the year we get a Xbox Two.

That New more powerfull Xbox One, launching in 2017, will need like 3years on market where its the topdog before they release a newer model.

I could swear you're describing PC's in that first paragraph.

The point of consoles, in my mind (and much like Veknoid there said), is to make a one time purchase that will be your gaming machine for years to come, and for that duration games are designed specifically with your console in mind. Bringing out frequent upgrades will inevitably cause many to develop games for the newer hardware, potentially causing performance issues for anyone with an older model (anyone who's a regular PC gamer should be painfully cognizant of this issue). It also engenders frustration with those who purchased the old model just prior to the announcement that a new one is coming, which is one reason the New 3DS pissed me the heck off.

With PC's you can replace individual parts of the computer and you know of hardware upgrades many years in advance. Here, we seem to be getting "rumors" no more than one year in advance. Someone who purchases a console should be guaranteed that they'll be receiving the full console experience, and not lesser ports of better games. You speak of it being easier on devs, but devs actually hate this idea due to the additional costs involved of trying to maximize their games for multiple iterations of the same console. In fact, contrary to your claim that devs needn't worry about a sudden switch in generations, under this system turnover will be even more frequent.

http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2016/04/19/ps4-5-neo-sony-playstation-4/

As for your comment about backwards compatibility, this in no way means there will be backwards compatibility indefinitely going forward. If they keep making consoles true upgrades (as in PS5) will render it as expensive as it's always been to have built-in backwards compatibility, and streaming may soon render that issue moot anyway. These upgrades are intended as a stopgap, not a successor.

I think it's important for consoles to not forget what they truly are: a less expensive machine exclusively for gaming. The model was never meant for cutting edge gaming, and given the new hardware will still be outdated when released, they're needlessly complicating their industry to little benefit for anyone, and we haven't even touched on the potential for upgrade exclusives that one has to imagine Sony and Microsoft will try to ease into the market over time (Nintendo already did it with the New 3DS).

So, as I wrote earlier, I'm all for advances in technology - just at a slower pace. If graphics and lighting meant nothing to me, I'd still be playing ColecoVision. As far as B goes, I don't recall writing I would feel forced to buy an interative console. I wrote that the act of upgrading mid-cycle would cloud the line between PC and console, and, in the process, destroy the raison d'etre of console gaming.

I think my points comply with and inform each other. I don't want iterative consoles because 1) when I invest in a console I expect a stable, uniform experience for a five or six year period and 2) I object to the principle that mid-cycle refreshes are necessary in the first place.

You sound like someone who's literally never seen a smartphone before, because that is literally the opposite of how iterative hardware works.

Just on the point of the frequent updates:

1 new hardware every 3 or 4 years is not much different than the classic 5/6 year turnover model that existed until now. Again, if you chose to upgrade after 6 years that's absolutely fine, at least according to what Sony has planned (based on the rumors) the games will literally be the same across the 2 models of the console. So if you're not concerned about being at the top of the graphical pyramid you'll absolutely be playing the same games, no impact on you as a consumer.

Now the comparison to PC is really flawed, the variance that exists between the 2 skus that would exist (eg PS4/PS4Neo) is orders of magnitude smaller than the amount of different PC configurations you can have. I would probably be willing to bet there are no 2 users on this forum with the absolute same PC at home (including hardware manufacturer for each of the parts), and still as long as you have the required operating system and minimum specs all the games will run.

Consoles won't have custom drivers for compatibility, unlike PCs. The system is unified and every single user should be on the same firmware version at any given point.

I think people who are not very familiar with the PC gaming world are panicking over absolutely nothing. Everyone will still have their plug and play experience without having to wonder if their machine will play whatever game they buy.

Regarding the backwards compatibility, I think you might be confusing the hardware iterations to software changes.

Example:

If i bought doom 2 in 1998 and I tried to install it right now to play I would absolutely be able to do so. Obviously all the components I have on my PC are light years ahead of the ones I had in 98, but as long as the operating system that ran that game is installed I'll easily be able to play it again on my current pc.

Now that the consoles are on an X86 architecture it's no more difficult than in a PC. If I'll want to play Bloodborne on my PS10, there is no reason not to have the option to add the PS4 operating system (or retain compatibility with such) on whatever OS they will have at the time. I think both Sony and Microsoft realized this and I can see a really bright future ahead for gamers. I really can see 0 disadvantages as things stand.

Same. Second only to having my penis in my hands

It's a matter of opinion on how frequent is too frequent, so I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one, but having said that my point still stands. Taking the rumors we have (and it's pretty much all we can base this on), they plan to share the same game library between both console generations. So what would you have to lose by keeping your current console and skipping the so called mid-cycle upgrade?

There is a stable uniform experience for you during whatever time it takes for the new leap to happen, so if you don't want to upgrade you really don't have to at all.

Is there something I'm missing here?

Having that type of compatibility would be fruitful for a company that is quite successful with their brand. Here's hoping to hear more from this year's E3.