If the 9th gen consoles launch with BC in 2020, is there any reason to produce 8th gen consoles beyond 2020?

[Mr Puggsly]

Pemalite said:

Mr Puggsly said:

I'm saying the PS3 Super Slim DID NOT BENEFIT CONSUMERS. Hence, cheaper to produce models doesn't mean we, consumers, will get cheap hardware. MS could have done a price war with 360 to boost sales, but I'm sure they were content to boost revenue instead.

Either way, at this point I believe Sony and MS rather keep prices relatively high for profits. The price war days on hardware are seemingly over.

There were a plethora of advantages even if the prices didn't move much with console revisions... Lower power consumption, less noise, less heat, more reliable...
Even if Sony did drop features to get there. (Ironically Microsoft did the opposite and added features like Wifi.)

There wasn't a rapid movement in price though at the start of the 7th gen because Microsoft and Sony were taking some financial losses on the hardware... The 8th gen is very conservative from a hardware standpoint as well, with very much fixed costs that aren't moving much.

It depends, revisions aren't objectively superior. Features can be removed, reliability varies, etc. There are examples of both improvements and downgrades in revisions of MS, Sony and Nintendo hardware.

There is certainly little or no interest in losing money on hardware. But with diminishing returns in visuals, I think that helps them get away with it. I mean modern games can be gorgeous on reasonably priced specs.