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EricHiggin on 18 October 2017
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X1Gates said:
GribbleGrunger said:

I believe Sony have played their hand perfectly with the PS4pro. What I think they did was force Microsoft's hand so they had to react much sooner than they wanted. Sony carefully 'under-promoted' the Pro to make sure only those in the know would rush out to buy one initially, knowing full well that MS would seize upon this and heavily promote the Scorpio, cementing it in the minds of a much larger audience. 

But why would they do that? I've always said that Sony play chess while Microsoft play poker, and this is a perfect example. There HAS to be a cooling off period between the release of a mid gen upgrade and the release of a brand new generation, otherwise a lot of people will feel slighted. Given that Sony have cleverly positioned the Pro as an upgrade while Microsoft have pushed the Scorpio as a huge leap over the Pro, Sony are sitting in a less vulnerable position, rather like Nintendo has, which has clearly worked for them. It's a slightly different scenario but I haven't seen many people complaining that they bought the Wiiu for certain games only to have those games held back and release on the Switch to give it sales merit. Why? Because they cut and ran, which was the perfect thing to do. Enough time had past for people to forget and move on. This of course meant Nintendo had to be VERY confident in their new console. They obviously had the right to feel that confident. Just look at the sales.

This leaves Sony in prime position with plenty of wiggle room concerning Microsoft's inevitable next gen console. There is no way Microsoft can release a next gen console only one year and six months after the Scorpio, unless they're willing to risk a huge backlash from a lot of their fans. However, Sony CAN risk releasing another console two and a half years after the Pro. They'll certainly get some backlash but nothing like Microsoft. This is why I feel Sony will bring the launch day forward and give themselves as long as they can to gain a substantial lead before Microsoft actually launch their next console. 

Sont couldn't promote the PRO because of the scorpio. They would have egg on their faces if they did. 

I tend to think that Neo was a "reaction" to Scorpio. It's hard to say how it went exactly, but that's how I see it for the most part. I think there was some truth to PS trying to stop players from going to PC, but I don't think that was the main point. So far, XB has basically been on a 4 year cycle, and I wouldn't doubt that PS anticipated a new XB come fall 2017. They just wouldn't know what that box would be exactly. What they did know, was that having a lead is almost always the better decision, especially if you have the goodwill and market share at the time, and waiting 5 or 6 years to launch PS5 with no mid gen upgrade, was going to leave the door open for XB to get back in the game with a more capable machine.

I get the feeling that the Neo version they decided to launch was the hybrid that they planned on initially. A console that could be a 1080p/60 machine if that's what Scorpio turned out to be, or a checkerboard 4k machine if Scorpio went after 4k. Since the other Neo (full 4k?) would have required newer hardware and probably would've meant a mid to late 2017 launch, that wouldn't fit their 6 year full gen plan, so going with the Pro as we know it, made the most sense. Not only that, but by going with the Pro that we have, with a late 2016 launch, meant XB would be put in a tough position if a PS4 Premium or PS5 launched late 2019. How early dare XB launch again after Scorpio?

I think PS keeping the Pro quiet made sense in terms of a mid gen console. New gen, have a parade. Mid gen, needs nothing more than a minor introduction. PS also didn't want to make too big of a deal out of it, because they knew they were going to have the weaker box, and didn't want to make it easy for XB to use that against them. Pretending like mid gen wasn't that big of a deal, may have hurt Pro sales somewhat, but it also more than likely, took a lot of hype away from the Scorpio as well. You could even say PS potentially "sacrificed" Pro in a way, to try and take as much hype out of Scorpio as possible, since MS had decided to go mid gen as well, and not next gen. Why not "sacrifice" Pro? If it works and it really hurts XB1X sales, then who cares? The PS4 is the money making machine and the customers who want more performance, will buy the Pro anyway if they like the PS ecosystem, whether it's hyped or not. As long as you make sure the casuals still stick with the base models, which is the majority of the customers, PS4 will continue it's steamrolling.

Overall, I agree with this. I think PS made their mid gen Pro decision based on the long game, not just the here and now. While I think PS won't rush the PS5 launch, I do think that XB could launch sooner than we anticipate, if the X ends up a failure. If X does good or great, then XB will almost be forced to wait another 3 or 4 years before they can launch another upgrade, which would give PS5 a nice lead going into next gen. It's a game of wait and see right now.