This is like one of those marketing focus group questionnaires in which consumers being polled check all the boxes for what they want in the given product followed by what they would be willing to pay for it. Often times, just about every box will be checked but when it comes to how much they'd pay for all those options and features, what they check is usually between unrealistic and laughable.

With the PS4, SCE would be best off by not trying to impress the hell out of potential customers (like the ones who won't be buying one for at least two years until the price goes down and there's an established back catalog of cheap games) with what the hardware is capable of doing (which will be vastly different from what it will actually do initially) and instead just cater to developers by making it as developer friendly as possible with the appropriate amount of main memory, video memory and processing power to facilitate the ease of development without having to reinvent the wheel with unnecessarily complex architecture and incomplete development coding tools and libraries.

Sell it at a reasonable price without taking a $200+ hit per unit over production cost and as long as the software supports the asking price, the will be enough early adopters to support soft sales that keep developers interested in supporting the platform.

Ultra Powerful Console = Ultra expensive console

Marginaly Powerful Console = More Offerdable Console

No. Math did.

They realized they need to make money to remain a company. Determined what is the price range they will need to be within in order to sell anything. Determined what components they can secure that will keep them within that range or within a justifiable (to investors) loss that would be gone within a year.

If you want or expect to be playing at the highest possible resolutions with 60fps or greater and showing the bleeding edge of technology, then buy a PC.

It's fine that Sony realizes they need to make money, but this really provides an easy opening to Microsoft.

They can create a machine more powerful than this and they can afford to take a slightly higher loss for a year or two if need be. As a company they make a profit every year (a big one) because of Windows, so 1-2 years of higher than expected losses from the game division in exchange for control of the living room for the future is a small price to pay.

If the XBox 720 has the best versions of Battlefield 4, Star Wars 1313, Watch Dogs, Call of Duty, etc. due to having a more powerful chipset ... IMO a lot of Playstation 3 owners are going to jump ship to the 720, and MS knows that.

They have Sony right where they want them.

I think you'll find those who want ultra powerful already have a gaming/top PC, as consoles go the's no point going ultra high power if the games you're getting are developed on the other platforms first and simply ported over, at least on PC you can up certain aspects. It may please those who are into Sony's first party as those would be the only games that would use the extra power.

MS is under the same constraints. They are losing marketshare in most markets and their investors won't allow them to lose money like X360 did at launch (even though it wasn't as bad as PS3). My post above applies to MS as much as it does Sony.

No, just leaps and bounds beyond the PS3.  They expect it to run some new engine that came out for the PC effortlessly, forget what it's called.

I don't think this is true. MS just makes billions in profit every year. They have gained marketshare with the 360.

It's not just about "video games" anymore, this is about control of the living room, if MS can consolidate the living room under their XBox banner, that's more than just video games. That is getting to something before Apple and Google can get there with Apple iTV and GoogleTV. And quite frankly after being late to the smartphone and tablet markets, Microsoft needs a "win", one area where they can point to and say "see? We beat everyone here" .

Losing $30-$40 extra/unit for a year or two is a small price to pay if the XBox 720 represents the definitive device people interface with to their television for the next decade.

Do not ever confuse MS with being in the same boat as Sony. Their financial situations are miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiles apart. Just because Sony is broke doesn't mean anything to Microsoft.

now if only I could understand what this means :D

what does "leaps and bounds" mean in this context?

i ask because it sounds comparable to what i've seen some niintendo fans say of the wii u

"expect it to run some new engine..."

unreal engine 4?