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setsunatenshi on 25 May 2016
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Johnw1104 said:
setsunatenshi said:

Don't you see the stability of being able to play your games on the current console that you can still own for the next 5/6 years, but if by any chance you decide to upgrade, you won't need to sell or store your entire collection just to start from 0 all over again? how about the stability for developers to create a game not having to worry if there will be a generation transition in mid development? i mean... come on, just because a new version of the console exists it doesn't mean you need to go and pick it up. Since you're not worried about better resolution, frame rate, lighting, physics, etc... why would you 'have' to buy the new version?

I keep hearing this common complain, from 1 side it's said they don't want to upgrade because it's pointless to have better image quality, but on the other side just because the same game is available in better quality they feel forced to buy it.

I'm just looking for a little bit of consistency here.

I could swear you're describing PC's in that first paragraph.

The point of consoles, in my mind (and much like Veknoid there said), is to make a one time purchase that will be your gaming machine for years to come, and for that duration games are designed specifically with your console in mind. Bringing out frequent upgrades will inevitably cause many to develop games for the newer hardware, potentially causing performance issues for anyone with an older model (anyone who's a regular PC gamer should be painfully cognizant of this issue). It also engenders frustration with those who purchased the old model just prior to the announcement that a new one is coming, which is one reason the New 3DS pissed me the heck off.

With PC's you can replace individual parts of the computer and you know of hardware upgrades many years in advance. Here, we seem to be getting "rumors" no more than one year in advance. Someone who purchases a console should be guaranteed that they'll be receiving the full console experience, and not lesser ports of better games. You speak of it being easier on devs, but devs actually hate this idea due to the additional costs involved of trying to maximize their games for multiple iterations of the same console. In fact, contrary to your claim that devs needn't worry about a sudden switch in generations, under this system turnover will be even more frequent.

http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2016/04/19/ps4-5-neo-sony-playstation-4/

As for your comment about backwards compatibility, this in no way means there will be backwards compatibility indefinitely going forward. If they keep making consoles true upgrades will render it as expensive as it's always been to have built-in backwards compatibility, and streaming may soon render that issue moot anyway. These upgrades are intended as a stopgap, not a successor.

I think it's important for consoles to not forget what they truly are: a less expensive machine exclusively for gaming. The model was never meant for cutting edge gaming, and given the new hardware will still be outdated when released, they're needlessly complicating their industry to little benefit for anyone.

Just on the point of the frequent updates:

1 new hardware every 3 or 4 years is not much different than the classic 5/6 year turnover model that existed until now. Again, if you chose to upgrade after 6 years that's absolutely fine, at least according to what Sony has planned (based on the rumors) the games will literally be the same across the 2 models of the console. So if you're not concerned about being at the top of the graphical pyramid you'll absolutely be playing the same games, no impact on you as a consumer.

Now the comparison to PC is really flawed, the variance that exists between the 2 skus that would exist (eg PS4/PS4Neo) is orders of magnitude smaller than the amount of different PC configurations you can have. I would probably be willing to bet there are no 2 users on this forum with the absolute same PC at home (including hardware manufacturer for each of the parts), and still as long as you have the required operating system and minimum specs all the games will run.

Consoles won't have custom drivers for compatibility, unlike PCs. The system is unified and every single user should be on the same firmware version at any given point.

I think people who are not very familiar with the PC gaming world are panicking over absolutely nothing. Everyone will still have their plug and play experience without having to wonder if their machine will play whatever game they buy.

 

Regarding the backwards compatibility, I think you might be confusing the hardware iterations to software changes.

Example:

If i bought doom 2 in 1998 and I tried to install it right now to play I would absolutely be able to do so. Obviously all the components I have on my PC are light years ahead of the ones I had in 98, but as long as the operating system that ran that game is installed I'll easily be able to play it again on my current pc.

Now that the consoles are on an X86 architecture it's no more difficult than in a PC. If I'll want to play Bloodborne on my PS10, there is no reason not to have the option to add the PS4 operating system (or retain compatibility with such) on whatever OS they will have at the time. I think both Sony and Microsoft realized this and I can see a really bright future ahead for gamers. I really can see 0 disadvantages as things stand.