| platformmaster918 said: If it's $50 then I say they should go for it and integrate it with the cooling system and other innards of the PS4. |
IMO, they should not. It would mean more $ spent on a larger power supply, cooling components, as well as the console's size would suffer as a result of having a larger motherboard with additional voltage regulation modules for the Cell CPU. $50 is way better spent on a faster GPU, or to keep the console $50 cheaper. Maintaining graphical leadership or competitive price against Wii U/ Xbox 720 matters a lot more for console sales to PS4's target market. High price is a far bigger deal breaker. We've already seen how when fat PS3 included BC but cost $500+ at launch, it sold poorly. It makes no sense to repeat the same mistake again especially since the economy is more fragile now globally than it was in 2006.
For example, at cost to Sony, $50 extra that would be like going from an HD7850 to an HD7950 GPU. That would be a massive increase in GPU power that people would notice over the course of 6-7 years. $50 doesn't sound like a lot but over 70 million consoles that's $3.5 billion extra. That means either Sony has to raise the price $50 to cover this additional expense (which means everyone who doesn't care for BC has to subsidize the desire of PS3 owners who do want this) OR Sony would need to absord this $3.5 billion loss. Neither options sound appealing because some gamers subsidizing the cost of BC for others sounds selfish, while Sony absorbind $3.5 billion in losses for BC sounds financially irresponsible. I would wager the opportunity cost of losing ons ome PS4 sales to people who want BC or no buy is less than $3.5 billion in lost profits to Sony, which means it's a no brainer for Sony to not include the Cell in PS4. This actually explains them ditching the PS2 hardware in PS3 eventually, which should have been done at the start.
Also given Sony's poor financial situation, it would be better for them to sell Full HD (1080P) remastered versions of the most popular games. This way people who never owned the PS3 / never played some of those games would get a better gaming experience, while Sony would get more revenue. I think we all would agree that long-term it's better that Sony survives in this industry. For them to do so, PS4 can't be sold with huge losses like PS3 was.
| platformmaster918 said: I'm in college and only have room for one box. Without BC I'll have to choose or switch them every time i need to switch consoles. |
When I went to university, I not only shared a dorm room with another roommate during my 1st year of studies, but I was able to fit a full desktop PC tower in there. If you can fit a PS4, how hard can it be to stack PS4 on top of PS3 vertically? You are telling us you can't buy 2-3 shelves and mount PS3/PS4 vertically on a wall like a picture frame? Really now?
Then keep using the PS3 until there are enough games on PS4 that makes it worth purchasing. BC should never be a selling feature because next generation consoles are for next gen games, not old games. If there are not enough PS4 games that justify buying the console around launch, then there is no point wasting $400 on it until the game library expands. This has been the train of thought for gamers who grew up in the 80s and 90s on NES, SNES, Genesis, N64 but for some reason the younger generation of gamers does not understand that it's illogical to spend $400 on a console to play PS3 games when your existing PS3 does this for free.
