If this the direction of consoles, what's the point. I can just go PC only.

More than 4 times as powerfull as the Xbox One, is a Large upgrade.

That would put it at over 5 teraflops (more than the rumored 4.2 teraflops or so of the PS4k (neo)).

Even if Phil said hes not a fan of the 1.5, thats basically what this will be.

It ll compete against the Neo, which is a half gen thingy.

People that like Mario & DKC, smash, splatoons, Pikmen, Animal Crossing, metroid.

Weren't the X360 and PS3 modified computers? 

Also, these upgrades will continue to offer Plug & Play convinience of a console. it doesn't mean you'll be gutting a Neo or Scorpio and change its hardware  configuration.

Additionally, Microsoft said they'll pursue to make the next boxes pro/reatroactive, where customers will never have their games barred on their next upgrade.

The Windows store is ridiculous and Microsoft is not a trustworthy company when it comes to anything, but I would like to play Halo on the PC.

MS is out of touch with the market once again by thinking they can have success with PC gaming. So merging Xbox and Windows is an enormous mistake, and of course the end for Xbox.

Too bad they working together with Oculus because I want Steam's HTC vive to be successful.

Yeah, it would be better if they launched the next gen, 9th gen, a couple of years earlier instead of artificially extending this gen with these upgrades. Because I feel the upgraded machines are kind of a half-measure since the extra computing power won't be utilized very well as the games must run well on the base level console. For example, VR really needs the extra power of Neo and Jaguar (or Tiger? what animal was it?) to run well, but they can't split the userbase so they must develop the games to run with 60fps or 90 fps on the base level consoles too. So there's gonna be wasted potential. And stability like you guys said. Think about the stress some people will feel when the new consoles come out and split the audience.

Full blown leaps, that's what gamers want.

How will that split happen if the same games can be played in those two tiered systems? Like B/C games on Xbox 1 and X360; or PC games.

Psychologically, mostly among school kids. Some have the old and some have the new superior version.

The difference won't be very big in reality, but among many gamers it will be a big deal. And then there's all the critics and naysayers (kind of like me) who will cry the "split the audience" argument, blow it out of proportion and this will increase the feeling among console fans that the player base is split.

It's not a huge thing, but like you see in this very thread many people are sour about these plans and feel betrayed.

When streaming becomes mainstream there won't be any need for iterating ever more powerful bits of hardware sitting under your TV. So I don't really know why anyone would be putting a long term strategy around iterative power upgrades. It would only be a medium term transitional strategy between the traditional console cycle and becoming a streaming service.

Assuming VR becomes big thing in gaming, which I have my doubts, then basically device power only needs to increase according to the need to stream gold standard resolution and fps to the VRwear.

The main problem with streaming is lack of universally reliable internet connections at a global level. Until that nut is cracked consoles will still need to be on the power treadmill. But I suspect reliable and fast internet at a sufficiently global level to be not all that far away. The remaining downside which is impossible to overcome technically because it's limited by the speed of light is lag. So that means servers for streaming in a lot more locations so as to minimise the lag.

Input lag is a serious issue with Game streaming.

VR is very sensetive to lag. People get sick, if they move their head and things dont react naturally as they should.

Streaming services arnt the future of gameing.

I'd rather they go for good software output than raw power. I want to play good games, I don't care about graphics.