PlayStation 4.5 PRICE, RELEASE DATE! - The Know (RUMOUR?)

[KBG29]

MortienGerrux said:

As others have said, this may only be the first upgrade PS4 gets throughout its life. We could possibly see another upgrade around 2019 or 2020. Like I said above, the tech is just not advancing fast enough to make actual generational leaps in the tradition console cycle, so these performance tiers are a nessesity. I don't expect to see a true PS5 on a radically new architecture until at least 2024, because, CPU, GPU, RAM, and SSD tech will not be advanced enough for a full leap to 4K until then. At that point 4K VR will be the norm and 8K TV's will be starting to ramp up.

2024? By that time, a smartwatch will be more powerful then the current PS4.

That may be a little bit of a stretch, but it is also why these incremental upgrades have to made between then and now. Sony can have the PS4K hit the shelves this year for $399 while current PS4 PS4 drops to $299 with sales brining it to $249 during the holiday rush. Next year 2017 we can see the release of the PS4 slim which will be the OG PS4 repackaged in a small form factor, and retailing for $249. In 2018 Sony can drop the price of the PS4K down to $349, and offer $199 and $299 holiday deals. Then in 2019, the PS4 Spec 3 is released at $399, the PS4 Spec 2 drop to $299 permenent, and the PS4 Spec 1 goes to $199. 

With this Sony continues to offer the Core community and new comers fresh hardware options, with up to date tech, while also letting people choose to save money and go for a low end box for a second room, or to replace a worn out unit.

My guess is that the next generation of consoles will be in late 2018 or early 2019 when Nvidia Volta/Next-Gen AMD arhictecture releases.

The problem with that is those new chips are not a significant enough upgrade to justify a whole new generation of consoles. They don't even equate to half the jump we saw between PS3 and PS4. The same can be said about the CPU and the RAM as well, a true next gen console needs to have at least 128GB of RAM to see the same leap we have seen in every PS generation so far. Additionally SSD tech is still not cheap enough to put in a console, and that is going to be a good part of the baseline for and new generation console, because it is going to require that type of read write speeds as a standard to achive truly next level games on both VR an traditional gaming. 

Of course if console gaming still exist in the future, with mobile gaming and PC gaming taking over...

Consoles arn't going anywhere, but the traditional console business model is dead. Devices like the Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV Box, and Roku are all gaming platforms as well. PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo are all targeting the same market as these devices. They are also targeting the Cable and Satellite box industry as well. All of these devices are fighting for that position under the TV, and that is a place that PC towers are never going to hold a large market.