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potato_hamster on 23 April 2016
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Intrinsic said:
RolStoppable said:

Let's compare:

Old console cycle - Buy a new console every 6 years.
New console cycle - Buy a new console every 3 years or skip an iteration and buy every 6 years.

Old - Get roughly 6 years of developers focusing on the console you bought.
New - Get roughly 3 years of focus and another 3 years of decline.

That's for consumers, but developers won't be happy that they basically have to work with a new hardware configuration for every game they make (assuming a three year development cycle which isn't farfetched in today's AAA industry).

So who is going to benefit from this? Sony, as long as they sell the hardware at a profit. Gamers who don't mind to buy new hardware every 3 years because they want the best console graphics.

I am all for it that Sony does hardware refreshes every 3 years.

Here is how I see it. 

When sony made the PS4. they expected it to be supported primarily for 6yrs. 

The Neo is more future proofing than anything else (for now). But it's also a ay if killing two birds with one stone. They would have done a hardware revision anyway (the slim) but why not do that and future proof in the process. 

the last 3yrs of the PS4 primary console life, the Neo just runs all games marginally better than the stock PS4. And those people that buy it are going to be OK with this. During this period the PS4 gets phased out and the Neo bcomes the primary console. So about 18 months before neo2 is released, you won't even see the PS4 available for sale anymore. 

When neo2 is launched, the cycle changes. Now neo is the primary console. Neo 2 gets games running slightly better since it's hardware is under utilized. and the PS4 is now only aable to run games released at that time at 900p/720p with dialed back effects...etc. But remember, at this point the PS4 is a 6+ year old console. 

By the time the neo3 is released, neo2 becomes the primary and so on. But at this point, due to whatever APIs Sony implents, the PS4 will still be able.o run Neo3 games. 

So under this model if someone buys a PS4 in 2018, 5 years after the original PS4 came out, they should only expect the latest games to support that hardware model for the next year before they can pretty much give up on any major release coming to their console ever again. Meanwhile if someone bought a PS3 in 2011 (5 years after the original PS3) came out, they knew that since the PS4 wasn't announced they would be playing the latest games before Sony even announces a successor, and probably another 2 years after the launch of the PS4.

So, while the PS3 had a proper 10 year lifecycle, and the PS4 has a hard, firm 6 year lifecycle, and you don't see this as a problem to consumers. All of the people that wait for a console to drop under $250 (that is, the majority of console gamers) to buy one will never ever buy a PS4 because the margins on a PS4 will never be so low to be able to reach that price milestone before becoming literally redundant for new games. So, under your model, Sony loses the most profitable years of a console's life and the majority of its customers by keeping margins low and costs high for the duration of a consoles life.

Great job.