EA (Laura Miele, Global Publishing Chief):

"I perceive it as upgrades to the hardware that will actually extend the cycle," she told me. "I actually see it more as an incredibly positive evolution of the business strategy for players and for our industry and definitely for EA. The idea that we would potentially not have an end of cycle and a beginning of cycle I think is a positive place for our industry to be and for all of the commercial partners as well as players.

"I have an 11-year-old son who plays a lot of games. We changed consoles and there are games and game communities that he has to leave behind and go to a different one. So he plays on multiple platforms depending on what friends he's playing with and which game he's going to play. So the idea that you have a more streamlined thoroughfare transition I think is a big win... things like backwards compatibility and the evolution," she continued.

"So it's not my perception that the hardware manufacturers are going to be forcing upgrades. I really see that they're trying to hold on and bring players along. If players want to upgrade, they can. There will be benefit to that. But it's not going to be punitive if they hold on to the older hardware... So we're thrilled with these announcements. We're thrilled with the evolution. We're thrilled with what Sony's doing, what Microsoft's doing and we think it's phenomenal. I think that is good for players. It'll be great for us as a publisher about how they're treating it."

Ubisoft (Alain Corre, Head of EMEA):

Ubisoft's head of EMEA Alain Corre is a fan of the faster upgrade approach as well. "The beautiful thing is it will not split the communities. And I think it's important that when you've been playing a game for a lot of years and invested a lot of time that you can carry on without having to start over completely again. I think with the evolution of technology it's better than what we had to do before, doing a game for next-gen and a different game from scratch for the former hardware. Now we can take the best of the next console but still have super good quality for the current console, without breaking the community up. We are quite big fans of this approach," he said.

"Each time there's a new machine with more memory then our creators are able to bring something new and fresh and innovate, and that's exciting for our fans who always want to be surprised. So the fact that Microsoft announced that they want to move forward to push the boundaries of technology again is fantastic news. Our creators want to go to the limit of technology to make the best games they can... so the games will be better in the years to come which is fantastic for this industry. And at Ubisoft, it's also in our DNA to be [supportive] early on with new technology. We like taking some risks in that respect... We believe in new technology and breaking the frontiers and potentially attracting new fans and gamers into our ecosystem and into our brands," Corre continued.

Take-Two aka 2K/Rockstar (Strauss Zelnick, CEO):

Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick pointed out the continuity in the communities as well. "The ecosystems aren't shifting as much. We essentially have a common development architecture now that's essentially a PC architecture," he said. And if the console market truly is entering an almost smartphone like upgrade curve, "It would be very good for us obviously. To have a landscape...where you put a game out and you don't worry about it," he commented, "the same way that when you make a television show you don't ask yourself 'what monitor is this going to play on?' It could play on a 1964 color television or it could play on a brand-new 4K television, but you're still going to make a good television show.

"So we will for sure get there as an industry. We will get to the point where the hardware becomes a backdrop. And sure, constantly more powerful hardware gives us an opportunity but it would be great to get to a place where we don't have a sine curve anymore, and I do see the sine curve flattening but I'm not sure I agree it's going away yet... That doesn't change any of our activities; we still have to make the very best products in the market and we have to push technology to its absolute limit to do so."

Read the rest here: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-06-27-xbox-scorpio-playstation-neo-incredibly-positive-evolution

TLDR: They like it

And there is no reason why they wouldn't since more consoles means more places to sell their games in.

Hype

I'd like to hear the opinion of the actual devs that will have to make all the work of supporting those new machines and the old ones, because we all know what the directives (like those three) will say.

"Neo and Scorpio are ruining the console industry. Developers will hate having to develop two versions for each game."

I think there is a misunderstanding here.

If they develope a game for PC for example they are already developing for "thousands of different consoles". If they have to develope for a console that is nearly the same, from a architectual point, there is not much to do. And we all know that a lot games are releasing on PC

Also its not a new console its an upgrade, so win for everyone (backwards compatibility)

You are still giving them more work, no matter how you try to spin it.

I feel weird when they talk about Backwards Compatibility. Didn't they say all the games would work on the older hardware anyway? And the newer models are structuraly the same but with more power? And they wouldn't allow to make games that don't work on the original models to avoid leaving those users behind? If that is the case, there is no Backwards Compatibility in any way.

And they love it. When the PS3 is finally scrapped, all the games people bought digitally or physically become obsolete and the market that was once there for developers is shut down. Now why do you think devs love it?

But do they really love it?

I mean, of course they're happy that the game they work on can be played and ejoyed by more people, but to the point of guessing that they love it?

And now let's not pretend that the PS4/X1 will be supported for many, many more years. I'd guess that they'll get 5-7 (at best) more years, and then the PS Neo/Scorpio will become the new base consoles.