The real tail end of N64 was arguably 2000/2001. In 2001 the N64 had very few games (kinda like 2015 in 7th gen) and 2002 was a Tony Hawk 3 port, it was basically dead after 2000.

While the N64 expansion pack came in 1998 it wasn't a common device until Nintendo started bundling it with games. Coincidently that when support became more common.

Bottom line, X1 and PS4 could get signficiant hardware upgrades without a price hike. That appeals to me versus another 8 years of the same hardware. Maybe it would just take longer for the hardware to hit $249. Anyway, lets just wait and see what happens.

An interesting experiment? The experiment has been done many times. Every single time it's failed.

Nonsense. The New 3DS is an example that it can be done, and also a huge example that it shouldn't be done. You also cite the N64 expansion pak, that was released in 1998, and afterwich a very small fraction of games released for the N64 actually supported this memory expansion. This is again a very good example of why it shouldn't be done. Further examples include the Sega CD and 32X. Both were also big failures. Also note, the improved processing power of the PSP over it's liife with each hardware revision, something Sony learned from with the Vita and didn't once try to improve. The extra processing power simply wasn't being used. Every time the vast majority of developers ignored the improved specs and just developed for the lowest common denominator.

History has shown time and time and time again that any efforts to improve console specs mid-cycle is a waste of time and money. Only a small fraction of consumers end up supporting it, and a even smaller fraction of developers even attempt to take advantage of it. There is no reason to expect this time to be any different. If you think somehow the technology to make such modifications easier for game developer look at the disaster than is the Unified Windows Platform and how PC ports of UWP games are a complete mess at launch. If MS can't figure out how to make it easy to port a X1 game to a PC what makes you think they can come up with an easy way to adapt engines to support multiple hardware specifications, and most importantly, not increase the cost of QA work. Game development is more expensive than ever and hardware is more complicated than ever. There's even less incentive to supoort multiple hardware configurations than ever before, especially when there is absolutely zero indication that if developer do support the improved hardware that it will lead to greater sales.

Here's what many people fail to understand. Three years in, the PS2 had only sold around 50 million units worldwide, but due to price cuts, the PS2 sold an additional 105 million units on its way to becoming the highest selling console of all time. The key to keeping up a consoles momentum and selling high volumes of units is via price cuts. This of course is also where hardware developers make the vast majority of their money. The hardware is cheaper for consumers because it is cheaper to produce and with it comes a higher profit margin. Year 3-6 is where most console developers make the vast majority of their money off of console sales. You're expecting them to throw that away, hit a reset on the generation half way through, and replace the most profitable years of a console's life with a more expensive, lower margin console that will cost more to market, more to design and manufacture, and more to support. For what exactly? How does this idea actually make Sony or Microsoft more money than they would putting out smaller, cheaper to make PS4s or X1s at $200 or $250 this fall?

I definetly agree with him but the problem is that it doesn't seem that those problems would be there because you always know what the lowest is / what will work with all of the PS4's for example. Its backwards and forwards compatible. Just like you don't have to remake an app for your iphone just because someone got a new iphone 5 SE.
However you not have the opportunity to increase fidelity for the higher tiers.

Where's the guy who swore up and down that it would be simple to do.

I dont see the big deal, there are still to this day a lot of Japanese devolopers who devolope a single game for PS4, PS3, PSvita and PC simultaneously. And these games dont even sell a lot of units or are only localized in Japan or partley localized in the West.

Bioware is just greedy, they want to make as much money as possible with the most laziest effort. I smell another Fallout 4 in visuals by Bioware

Fallout 4 is developed by Bethesda Game Studios and not Bioware (owned by EA). How can Bioware produce "another" Fallout 4 in visuals when they haven't done so this generation? Their only game so far has been Dragon Age: Inquisition, which was cross-gen, and that looked perfectly fine at the time of its release.

It released in the second year, then Nintendo had to bundle it with games that only work with it to make it sell.
Does that sound appealing for a X1.5/ps4.5. Exclusives bundled with the upgraded console that don't work on the old one?

Why do you think it will be another 8 years? An 11 year console cycle?

They could get a hardware upgrade by resetting profit margins back to zero and spending extra R&D, marketing, storage for different sku's etc. That will slow down this generation and will lead to a longer generation rather than a real upgrade in 2019 or 2020. Instead of getting new graphics engines etc in 4 years, you'll still be getting games tailored to the base model with the extra hardware mostly unused.

All games should work with the old hardware, I think I stressed that point.

I don't think there is any rush to launch new consoles so it'll be a while. Significantly more powerful devices with little impact on price is appealing.

Hundreds of games could take advantage of the new specs, you really don't know. It just depends how easy they are to take advantage of. You created a scenario where they are difficult and expensive to use.

Or what? Mr Puggsly will come over to knock some sense into them? :)

You're creating a scenario where there is zero benefit for developers to use the new specs. The past has shown that Nintendo had to force the memory pack and now the N3DS with exclusive games to get the ball rolling. Why would that be different now?

It simply is not a profitable venture to keep the price the same and add a new hardware spec. What will make more profit is a smaller design, smaller fan, smaller psu, built in VR port and audio processing to eventually be bundled with the VR headset and get that price down to something sensible.

UWP games came out and gave him a harsh dose of reality. UWP was supposed to do exactly this. As it turns out, it's an incredibly restrictive and difficult to use development platform, and the results speak for themselves - terrible ports when making a PC game from an Xbox game was advertised to be - and I'm paraphrasing -  "just a little extra work after simply recompiling the code".

There are plenty of great ideas that look absolutely wonderful on paper, but people forget that those ideas have to be made into reality and demonstrated to be feasible before people can claim it's "simple to do".