What should Sony do for the next Playstation?

[curl-6]

EricHiggin said:

curl-6 said:

If PS6 as per rumors has multiple versions, and therefore likely also PS7, you'd end up having to develop more and more versions (Say PS5, PS5 Pro, PS6, PS6 portable, PS6 Lite, PS7, PS7 Lite, PS7 Portable) which is extra work for devs. Not insurmountable, but still extra work. Having two generations supported at the same time is one thing, but three at the same time might be troublesome.

More importantly, generations have been getting longer for a while now, if a 5 year cycle was really easier, surely they'd have done it already.

You'd have to change business models. So in this case, you'd end with the PS6 handheld, and then a PS6 console with either the exact same internal hardware as the handheld making it super easy for devs, or the console could be beefed up hardware, whether that internal hardware was a beefier chip, or the same handheld chip just boosted as much as reasonably possible.

Either way you only have 2 pieces of hardware each gen, and you launch new hardware every 5 years, while supporting the previous gen hardware throughout the next gen, so all hardware is good for a decade. Which means there's only 2 to 4 different pieces of hardware to dev for at any time.

Companies don't want to constantly change business models. That tends to be inefficient. That logic also doesn't work because who would've guessed that SNY would've planned what they did with PS3? Much of the thinking behind that gen what nonsense. Also some of what they've done with PS5 this gen has been a bit of a headscratcher, unless you only take profits into account, then it makes sense.

I guess I just don't really see how this 5 year cycle would be better than just sticking with the current 7 year model.

Radically changing your business model need to justify itself by bringing huge benefits.