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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Should consoles cost $500+ ?

Ka-pi96 said:
Nope.

Although I assume you're talking about Neo/Scorpio in which case it doesn't really matter. I mean let's say the PS4 Neo sells like 10-20m consoles, that would be catastrophic by itself. But it's not by itself the regular PS4 will still be selling alongside it. So yeah, by itself = failure. With a cheaper alternative = still won't do great, but won't really matter.

If it does 20M units while the regular model keeps the pace, I would call it a success. Nobody can expect these devices to sell as good as the regular models since they will be almost 2 times the price.

It's more like a high-end model to avoid people jumping to PC towards the end of the gen. I remeber when I bought a cheap GTX650 in 2012. It was a ridiculously cheap GPU, way cheaper than a PS3 or 360. It ran Crysis on high-ultra @ 30 fps, Metro almost on ultra. PS360 looked like garbage. Right now, I have a 970, which is a pretty beefy GPU and was basically the price of my PS4 by itself. It doesn't run the games significantly better than the PS4 while my entire PC probably costs 2 times its price, so it's a tough sell for the masses.

I see these consoles having more legs than huge initial sales. As the years pass, they will become cheaper and cheaper and towards the end of the gen late adopters will be more inclined to buy the more powerful model since it won't be as outdated as the regular model.

I also don't see it as doesn't having its importance. PS360 after 2012 were a catastrophe. Almost all big games flopped and they lost users to mid-end PCs. Neo and Scorpio can remove this effect towards the last few years of the gen since they will still pack a good punch.

The alternative would be return to 5 years generations. It's not feasible anymore because complex games sometimes take 5 years to arrive. If PS360 had ended up in 2010-11, most of the best games would not make it on time or arrive in the last year. Actually, PS3 lineup only got good in 2011.



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Its better to spent more to last longer then to have something that is completely underpowered after 3-4 years.




Twitter @CyberMalistix

torok said:
Ka-pi96 said:
Nope.

Although I assume you're talking about Neo/Scorpio in which case it doesn't really matter. I mean let's say the PS4 Neo sells like 10-20m consoles, that would be catastrophic by itself. But it's not by itself the regular PS4 will still be selling alongside it. So yeah, by itself = failure. With a cheaper alternative = still won't do great, but won't really matter.

If it does 20M units while the regular model keeps the pace, I would call it a success. Nobody can expect these devices to sell as good as the regular models since they will be almost 2 times the price.

It's more like a high-end model to avoid people jumping to PC towards the end of the gen. I remeber when I bought a cheap GTX650 in 2012. It was a ridiculously cheap GPU, way cheaper than a PS3 or 360. It ran Crysis on high-ultra @ 30 fps, Metro almost on ultra. PS360 looked like garbage. Right now, I have a 970, which is a pretty beefy GPU and was basically the price of my PS4 by itself. It doesn't run the games significantly better than the PS4 while my entire PC probably costs 2 times its price, so it's a tough sell for the masses.

I see these consoles having more legs than huge initial sales. As the years pass, they will become cheaper and cheaper and towards the end of the gen late adopters will be more inclined to buy the more powerful model since it won't be as outdated as the regular model.

I also don't see it as doesn't having its importance. PS360 after 2012 were a catastrophe. Almost all big games flopped and they lost users to mid-end PCs. Neo and Scorpio can remove this effect towards the last few years of the gen since they will still pack a good punch.

The alternative would be return to 5 years generations. It's not feasible anymore because complex games sometimes take 5 years to arrive. If PS360 had ended up in 2010-11, most of the best games would not make it on time or arrive in the last year. Actually, PS3 lineup only got good in 2011.

I find myself favoring the 5 year hardware cycle, even at the expense of extreme upgrades to specs. And no, I don't mind buying a new console every 5 years assuming they don't rise exponentially in cost with each subsequent release, which won't happen because of the way the console consumer base is structured.

At this point, no consumer should realistically expect proprietary "black magic" technology (and the massive R&D this requires) that resets the standards each generation. All that manufacturers really have to do is take advantage of advances and developments in fabrications processes, ICs, memory, cost adjustments, etc. of the time to update designs with the appropriate customizations to suit their target needs. 

I'm fairly certain the days of expecting manufacturers to dump their products at a significant loss are over which does favor a hardware cycle in which manufacturers aren't locked into a X year requirement in production before hardware cost losses can be recouperated. 

Nintendo has actually had that flexibility for generations; the only reason the Wii lasted as long as it did was due to its early success. Notice how quickly the Wii U is wrapping up its product life cycle by comparison. Nintendo sold it at a profit from launch so the key losses to their bottom line were to the brand (due to low sales) and consumer perception that they are abandoning a platform too early (four years) due in large to the unusual length of the 7th gen. Consumers got a lot of mileage out of 7th gen consoles by comparison, particularly those who were early adopters. 

Notice how current console designs are more like a cross between desktop PCs and mobile devices; their designs can be significantly and continually upgraded utilizing advances in the previously mentioned areas without having to start with a clean sheet of paper. 

Again, I would point to Nintendo to show how they have been reusing existing designs with upgrades and updates without resorting to that blank slate hardware architecture approach. 

While the lengthy development pipeline for certain games is certainly a factor, this is nothing new. It's no different than developing a game with a projected 3 year development pipeline for a console that is in its 3rd or 4th year of market availability. Would any publisher realistically finance such a project without having a contingency plan that included adopting/porting their game for an as of yet not existent future console? Of course not. 



If it's worth $500, sure.



"You should be banned. Youre clearly flaming the president and even his brother who you know nothing about. Dont be such a partisan hack"

No. PS3 and XB1 proved this, they shouldn't. Either take a loss, or make your console less powerful.



Made a bet with LipeJJ and HylianYoshi that the XB1 will reach 30 million before Wii U reaches 15 million. Loser has to get avatar picked by winner for 6 months (or if I lose, either 6 months avatar control for both Lipe and Hylian, or my patrick avatar comes back forever).

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greenmedic88 said:

I find myself favoring the 5 year hardware cycle, even at the expense of extreme upgrades to specs. And no, I don't mind buying a new console every 5 years assuming they don't rise exponentially in cost with each subsequent release, which won't happen because of the way the console consumer base is structured.

At this point, no consumer should realistically expect proprietary "black magic" technology (and the massive R&D this requires) that resets the standards each generation. All that manufacturers really have to do is take advantage of advances and developments in fabrications processes, ICs, memory, cost adjustments, etc. of the time to update designs with the appropriate customizations to suit their target needs. 

I'm fairly certain the days of expecting manufacturers to dump their products at a significant loss are over which does favor a hardware cycle in which manufacturers aren't locked into a X year requirement in production before hardware cost losses can be recouperated. 

Nintendo has actually had that flexibility for generations; the only reason the Wii lasted as long as it did was due to its early success. Notice how quickly the Wii U is wrapping up its product life cycle by comparison. Nintendo sold it at a profit from launch so the key losses to their bottom line were to the brand (due to low sales) and consumer perception that they are abandoning a platform too early (four years) due in large to the unusual length of the 7th gen. Consumers got a lot of mileage out of 7th gen consoles by comparison, particularly those who were early adopters. 

Notice how current console designs are more like a cross between desktop PCs and mobile devices; their designs can be significantly and continually upgraded utilizing advances in the previously mentioned areas without having to start with a clean sheet of paper. 

Again, I would point to Nintendo to show how they have been reusing existing designs with upgrades and updates without resorting to that blank slate hardware architecture approach. 

While the lengthy development pipeline for certain games is certainly a factor, this is nothing new. It's no different than developing a game with a projected 3 year development pipeline for a console that is in its 3rd or 4th year of market availability. Would any publisher realistically finance such a project without having a contingency plan that included adopting/porting their game for an as of yet not existent future console? Of course not. 

The lenghty pipeline is something new, since the last generation. PS2 games were made with 50 developers and two or three years. Also mind that it isn't always possible to start developing so early, because you need dev kits to do real progress and that won't arrive that early. Porting to a next gen is feasible, but you would end up with games that look midway trough generations (like MGS5).

For the bolded part, I believe that this could even end up eliminating console generations. No more retro-compatibility problems, new units each 2 or 3 years. Each unit keeps receiving games for 7 or 8 years.



If it is the only choice, it's absolutely too much to pay. If you want the premium console.... Pay the premium price.



It doesn't matter as people will pick it up when the price drops to something reasonable.



torok said:

The lenghty pipeline is something new, since the last generation. PS2 games were made with 50 developers and two or three years. Also mind that it isn't always possible to start developing so early, because you need dev kits to do real progress and that won't arrive that early. Porting to a next gen is feasible, but you would end up with games that look midway trough generations (like MGS5).

For the bolded part, I believe that this could even end up eliminating console generations. No more retro-compatibility problems, new units each 2 or 3 years. Each unit keeps receiving games for 7 or 8 years.

And yet major AAA franchises like Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, etc. can crank out a new title every year even though that's done via multiple development teams working on different games from the same franchise.

Nintendo games have had long development pipelines dating back to the N64. There's a reason why we don't see annual or even bi-annual releases for IPs that could easily sell on that frequency. Zelda games in particular have notoriously long development pipelines. 

The thing to note about current console development is that most of the games are co-developed for PC/Windows due largely in part to changes in console architecture that more closely resembles modern gaming PCs. This is intentional. It's also the reason why we're not seeing crazy proprietary chipsets in consoles anymore. 

But once you start developing console games that are more of a product of a PC like development environment, it becomes quite a bit easier to do cross generational ports. It's a fairly safe bet that this is going to be the common standard heading in the future.

And yes, because of this, we may well see the eventual elimination of the concept of console generations as a marketing tool, much like the PC market. While I'm sure this will rankle a portion of the console consumer base, particularly the ones who buy on the perception of having the most powerful/up to date hardware, I would not be surprised to see a console market in which SCE and MS release significant hardware updates every 2-3 years while maintaining the same operating system and full compatibility with the previous generation hardware (as a ".5" or "+" update), possibly even squeezing the same games across 3 generations of hardware before the earlier generation loses standard support (no more first party releases/ports, no required 3rd party support for new games, etc.). So a consumer would still be able to play the latest games on a 7 year old console, but with a fair amount of concessions in the form of performance and visuals, just like an older/lower spec gaming PC. 



greenmedic88 said:
 

And yet major AAA franchises like Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, etc. can crank out a new title every year even though that's done via multiple development teams working on different games from the same franchise.

Nintendo games have had long development pipelines dating back to the N64. There's a reason why we don't see annual or even bi-annual releases for IPs that could easily sell on that frequency. Zelda games in particular have notoriously long development pipelines. 

The thing to note about current console development is that most of the games are co-developed for PC/Windows due largely in part to changes in console architecture that more closely resembles modern gaming PCs. This is intentional. It's also the reason why we're not seeing crazy proprietary chipsets in consoles anymore. 

But once you start developing console games that are more of a product of a PC like development environment, it becomes quite a bit easier to do cross generational ports. It's a fairly safe bet that this is going to be the common standard heading in the future.

And yes, because of this, we may well see the eventual elimination of the concept of console generations as a marketing tool, much like the PC market. While I'm sure this will rankle a portion of the console consumer base, particularly the ones who buy on the perception of having the most powerful/up to date hardware, I would not be surprised to see a console market in which SCE and MS release significant hardware updates every 2-3 years while maintaining the same operating system and full compatibility with the previous generation hardware (as a ".5" or "+" update), possibly even squeezing the same games across 3 generations of hardware before the earlier generation loses standard support (no more first party releases/ports, no required 3rd party support for new games, etc.). So a consumer would still be able to play the latest games on a 7 year old console, but with a fair amount of concessions in the form of performance and visuals, just like an older/lower spec gaming PC. 

Call of Duty has 3 studios working on games, so each one of them has 3 years, even if the game reuses a lot of assets and don't change much between iterations. Assassin's Creed usually takes several major studios at the same time, it may even employ 1000 people. It's not feasible for most games to use that level of manpower. Also mind that the last two games were bug fests, so it isn't a good example.

The advantages of a PC-like architecture are clear. I remember that The Division started its development on PC. I saw in an interview a developer saying that they ported the cod they had to PS4 after receiving the dev kit in 4 months with only 4 guys. Easy peasy. This made Scorpio and Neo possible.

I think removing gens would make things easier for us, consumers. However, I'm afraid that Sony/MS/Nintendo won't do it because launching a new console really is a big marketing ploy. The new stuff, a bunch of new functions packed up, it's a special moment. It's hard to replicate this when you do an iPhone-like reveal. Even Apple is having trouble to really "wow" the consumers because it's always more of the same.