I dont think the N64 expansion pack was a failure at all and it added value to numerous games via extra features like 4 player modes. Since it was a relatively cheap upgrade it also was used to create games with more potential than the original hardware.

The PSP improved specs werent really used for games.

The DSi improvements wasnt for cartridge games per se, more like online stuff.

The New 3DS has replaced the original model and the games that take advantage of it have seen great improvments that the original specs are not capable of. Reception for it has been positive from what I know and people want more games to take advantage of it. Mobile platforms are a dying market and I dont blame that on New 3DS.

You have taken a stance but your arguments are weak in my opinion.

The 3DS reception has been positive? Why do you think that ? Is it the fact that the flagship New 3DS exclusive sold game horrifically bad (only 150,000 copies world wide - annual releases of rugby games sell better than that). Or the fact that the New 3DS has only sold 6.3 million consoles in a year and a half on the market? Or the fact that almost half of New 3DS sold were sold in the first quarter of its release? Or the fact that the New 3DS only made up 22% of 3DS sales last year? Or is it that hundreds of developers that aren't supporting the additional performance in any way? Please tell me who is receiving it positively. Because the fact that the few people that bought it probably like it doesn't really matter that much.  Show me how the new 3DS directly puts Nintendo in a better position (in terms of dollars and cents now or in the forseeable future) than they would if the new 3DS wasn't released. Because that's what truly matters to a business.

 In fact, if you look at user reviews of xenoblade chronicles, there's quite a few that are pissed at Nintendo that the game they bought doesn't work on the regular 3DS they own. You could legitimately argue that the introduction of the New 3DS might have actually weakened the platform as a whole, especially considering that the R + D Nintendo spent developing it could have been spent giving the 50+ million existing 3DS owners a better experience instead. You'll be hard pressed to find an impartial industry analyst that will says that Nintendo made a good financial decsion in releasing the New 3DS as it is. It was a risk Nintendo took that flat out never payed off.

See you're just looking at it from the hardcore gamer pojnt of view that's willing to spend $300+ on a new console every 2-3 years that just wants the best console experience possible. You're just seeing it as "well these spec improvements made some games better so of course it's worth it". When in reality that's the least relevant from a game developer or a console developer point of view. Or you know, the people that actually stand to profit off the success of a console platform. Let's use an example to illustrate my point. Take a look at the original introduction of the Xbox One. For the gamers that wanted it, what Microsoft was selling was the greatest concept for a console ever, but that turned out to be a very tiny fraction of the people who Microsoft thought would want a console like they introduced.  As a result they were pretty much universally ridiculed and lamblasted.Pre-orders were bad. The launch of the Xbox One was set to be a gigantic flop.  So MS pulled off what they said was impossible, they conceded and changed the platform into something tens of millions of more people would buy, and have bought. So why did they do that? Why didn't they just make the console that a small fraction of buyers would totally love? Because making video games and video game consoles is a business, and the objective of that business is to make money. If the idea is no good, and consumers as a whole reject the idea, then the platform becomes weaker, it's hurts the consoles sales, and it hurt's the console maker's bottom line.

When you're considering whether these specification improvements truly were successful, ask yourself this: How many of these improved specs actually made the platform stronger, improved the console's sales momentum  and made the console maker a satisfactory return on investment as a result?

Ohh right. None of them can really argue that. Introducing a higher spec console mid generation has never improved a consoles sales long-term. It has never lead to increased game sales and profits for those game developers that support it. It has never lead to industry-wide third-party support of the higher spec console. It has arguably never led to a legitmate and meaningful strengthening of the platform in the eyes of the average prospective gamer. It has probably never even so much as recouped the R+D that went into developing it and producing it. If you want to argue that any high spec mid-generation console was successful at the very least you have to demonstrate the higher spec console actually did ALL of the things I mentioned previously. Because at the end of the day, those are the things that actually matter as far as the video game industry is concerned.

What's the flagship 3DS title? I'm guessing Xenoblade, but that sold 500K. Not 150K.

Personally I feel they Xenoblade should have been scaled back to work on all 3DS consoles, but it sold pretty well for a port and the genre.

I didn't say they should make a new console every 2-3 years, that's terrible idea. I'm suggesting an upgraded console might be okay after about 5 years. Also, the ideal scenario is all games work on both old and new specs. In theory they could put an improved CPU and/or GPU a redesign model, then developers could decide whether or not they want to take advantage of it.

After about 5 years improved spec models could actually stimulate interest. Maybe a company like MS might try to push a improved spec model like a new console. Bottom line, I don't want improved models as quickly as you're suggesting.

The steambox was a failure because it's actually the worst of both worlds and appeals to pretty much no one. However that also applies to PS4/X1 upgrades but you just haven't figured that out yet.

Hey, care to let me know if iPhone developers are required to support older models of iPhones? Right, they're not. They can develop specifically for the iPhone 6S if they wanted to and make the game incmopatible with previous platforms. Or they could develop a game just for the iPad Air, or just for the iPad pro if they choose. And do you know what they do if they don't test their game on a particular iPhone model and they just assume it works, but when the game hits it turns out it's unplayable? They just cross that model off of their compatibility list and move on. See what I'm getting at here? That's a bit of a different scenario then, isn't it? They can raise the minimum spec of their game to just support the hardware which already runs a game well rather than putting in the effort to optimize it. Imagine going into a gamestop and having to look up whether or not the latest PS4 game was compatible with your version of the PS4 before you bought it. I'm sure such a scenario would have would-be console buyers just throwing their money at Sony!

On top of that, iPhone games aren't known for their stellar graphics, or advanced AI, or being the leading edge of gaming in any way, are they? That's because iPhone games aren't optimized for specific hardware specifications, which is one of the biggest advantages of console development. This means that making iPhone games is actually more akin to making PC games than console games. This is actually the same argument as the "PC games support millions of different hardware specs, why can't console games?" argument, except scaled down slightly, but the same negatives to this style of development still apply.

So again, you not understanding why developers would complain is because you lack a fundamental understanding of how console video games are made. Sure they could develop console games the way PC and iPhone games are developed, but they'd be incredibly unoptimized compared to how they are now, and they would still be more expensive to develop for since the QA work would still be increased linearly for every additional specification, and QA is already a significant portion of console development. Console games would look worse, and run worse, and would be less complex than they are now. That is, unless you expect console video game developers to put in the additional efforts of rewriting engines, and eat all of the other additional costs of supporting a new hardware specifcation when there would quite literally be no expectation that any of that effort would lead to additional sales.

Why are people having such a hard time grasping that console video game developers actually stand to lose from supporting this concept?

That logic might've been true for PS2 and earlier generations but not anymore. "Highly optimized and stable" games for consoles are a rarity now. There are so many broken, badly optimized and unfinished games on console these days that they can't use quality control as an excuse because there rarely is any quality anymore. Developers aparently don't give a shit about resolution or framerate anymore. They just build their vision, then realize that the platform is not strong enough for it and then they try to dig themselves out of their own hole by "optimizing". Which in most cases is barely possible because the game on such limited hardware has to be designed for performance and then visuals, not the other way around.

So what can we do to help struggling developers who aren't even able to optimize a game for a single platform? That's correct, give them more power to deal with. The games might still be unoptimized garbage but at least they'll run better.

My apologies, the latest number that i was citing for 148K in sales was just North America. My bad there.

Also, my bad for assuming you wanted a new console every 2-3 years, that's what most people who want a PS4.5 style console are pushing for, and I made a bad assumption.

So you want an upraded console every 5 years when the trend has been to release a brand new console every 4-6 years as it is? You do realize that the PS4 and X1 have only been out for less than 2.5 years right? So you want is for Sony to do things like instead of releaing the PS5, just create a PS4.5? Is that what you're pushing for? If so, why not just push for a PS5 with backwards compatibility? Wouldn't that do more or less the same thing since for the first 2 years of a console's release developers tend to support the previous platform as well? I mean we've only recently reached the point where most AAA multi-platform games are no longer supporting the PS3 and X360.

So how do you imagine this working? Sony releasing the PS4.5 around Novemeber 2018, and then turning around and releasing the PS5 around November 2019 or 2020? Where/when does the PS5 come into play?

Let me just put it this way, if MS or Sony really wan to push a 8-9 console generation. An upgrade somewhere in the middle would be great. But if the plan is only 5-6 years, maybe a new console with BC makes sense.

Assuming they stick with the same arcitecture then a new console with full BC should be easy.

This shouldn't surprise. The PS1 was released in 1994, the PS2 was released in 2000, The PS3 in 2006, and the PS4 in 2013. That is 6-7 years per console. Sure they supported the PS1, PS2 and PS3 for years after the release of their predecessors, but there's no reason to think the PS5 won't be dropping between 2018 and 2020