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Zekkyou on 26 October 2016
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superchunk said:

Why do any of you care if it is called new generation or not?

Scropio and PS4Pro gave you exactly what you all clamor about at each generation. More power. That's it.

What else did XboxOne and PS4 really bring over PS360? What new gameplay are they accomplishing with the new form factors?

Its all the same and yet you are joyous and scream with glee. There are no generations. Even the mobile space has stopped using that term completely and just go with whatever the yearly iterations are.

Fact is, when a PS5 is announced, it will be a skinned PS4 with more power and an OS upgrade.

You're right that the majority of the jump between the PS3/360 and PS4/X1 is in their specs (though i personally see no problem with this), but you're somewhat oversimplifying the process. The PS4 and X1 didn't simply offer more power, they offered more ways to use that power.

It's because of the above that we saw 2 mini generation jumps on the PS4/X1. The first was the jump between the 7th and 8th gen versions of cross-gen titles (the upgrades being limited to resolution, performance, and linearly scalable graphical features), and then another jump between those cross-gen titles and titles made specifically for the PS4 and X1 (games with brand new engines, capable of stuff that couldn't be properly scaled onto the PS3 and 360). The WiiU benefited from this too. It's why, despite the system itself being a relatively smaller jump over the PS3 and 360 (in some areas, actively worse than both), it's able to produce much better results. The combined effects of these two jumps carried over to the PC too. They're already capable of using much of that new tech, and are primed with the power needed to make use of it, but they're held back by many AAA titles needing to scale properly onto consoles. The newer the tech behind the console, the less extreme the effects of that need to scale. 

The Scorpio and Pro are only offering the first of those jumps. They're limited by their need to scale fully with the standard PS4 and X1, so their power will be focused on resolution, performance, and linear upgrades. My take-away from Sony's statement here is that the PS5, when it does release, will introduce those non-linear jumps (presumably along with another raw power jump). I expect it to be fully backwards compatible with the PS4 and Pro, but i wouldn't be surprise to see support for the standard PS4 dropped on day 1 for new PS5 titles, and support for the Pro scaled down in a similar fashion to the PS3.

Now, you clearly don't value graphical upgrades that much, and that's fine, but to those of us who do the distinction between these types of upgrades are important. I don't personally care what people do or don't call a generation, but as long as there is a desire for new and interesting game tech, there will be a limit to the scaling.