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Ballas on 15 May 2016
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shikamaru317 said:
Ballas said:

That's what people said about PS3 when Uncharted 2 released in 2009. Then God of War III released next year and blew them away. Subsequent years saw Uncharted 3, Killzone 3, God of War: Ascension and The Last Of Us pushing the PS3 beyond what Uncharted 2 did.

There's a crucial difference, PS3 used a custom solution. Because developers start off not knowing much about a system's architecture when a custom solution is used, throughout the generation they constantly find more power "hidden away" that they didn't know they had to work with. PS4/XB1 basically use off the shelf PC components, any developer that has been developing games for awhile was familiar with that hardware already because they've likely released a game on PC at some point (especially 3rd party developers).

In other words, because developers started off with more familiarity with PS4/XB1 hardware than a typical console that uses a custom solution, they started off the gen getting more out of the hardware percentage wise than they would have if PS4/XB1 had used more expensive custom solutions. It's quite possible that developers have already managed to access 80-90% of what PS4 and XB1 are cable of. It's why we're getting a hardware refresh after only 3 years for Sony (PS4K Neo), and I suspect MS will also either refresh XB1 soon(XB1.5) or release their next console as early as next year (Holiday 2017). 

That may be true but Sony's devs usually always find a way to push the limits further. Even considering the familiar architecture the power of a PS4 is comparable to a mid range PC yet it has visual showpieces like Driveclub, The Order and Uncharted 4. Devs may have pushed it close to its limits but not necessarily reached its absolute limit which is possible given enough time and effort in a game.

This has nothing to do with why we have a PS4.5 though. Its probably been done to attract the PC gamer crowd who would have bought a console had they not been so underpowered, to give customers a choice of a premium console with better specs if they can afford it and to extend the longevity of the platform. The PS4 gets a lot of hate on many fb gaming pages due to its lack of power and many people have jumped from consoles to PC's for that reason. This is to serve them and bring them back to console gaming.