Ryzen is a huge improvement over AMD's prior high end CPU's, and thats as of right now. You also have to take into account that in 3-4 years time with the normal yearly incremental improvements, Ryzen should be miles ahead of Jaguar. Even though XB and PS have been using outdated tech, they like to incorporate new features from the newest tech if possible.

If what XB has managed to achieve with Jaguar in terms of offloading and efficiency, could handle 60fps locked at 4k, and they anticipate this will be able to compete with "PS5 and next gen games", you have to wonder whether or not PS would try and immitate this hardware design for another PS4 or PS5 at 7nm. While it wouldn't be the best decision in terms of tech, it would be in terms of business input costs as well as BC.

I would hope and assume that Ryzen is the next step for consoles, but with this business and marketing structure of more powerful, yet smaller/efficient hardware being sold at cost, which needs to hit an acceptable consumer price, I can't help but wonder.

Ditch consoles and go on PC, all digital.

Zen's CPU cores are tiny. So there is no reason not to use them next generation from a cost perspective. So that is a plus.
We might see some cutbacks/changes to the cache hierachy, which is normal.
Even then, I would assume next-gen uses Zen+ rather than Zen anyway, which should bring with it a myriad of improvements where Ryzen currently is lacking.

Xbox One X though isn't going to be a 4k, 60fps machine... I called it before the console was even a rumor, same with the Playstation 4 Pro. - Jaguar is partly at fault for that, but the biggest culprit is that GPU, which prevents many games from hitting that 4k target.
The console is only using mid-range PC hardware... And if that hardware can't hit 4k on PC reliably, then it certainly can't on Xbox.

The Xbox One's GPU is however well suited to 1440P, 60fps... Then you can use frame reconstruction/checkerboard/upscaling to hit that 4k target, which should be fine for this generation.

I would be interested to see where Microsoft and Sony take their Ram next generation, we will have GDDR6 on the market which is likely the logical choice, but HBM2 should be out in force as well.
Will they opt for 32GB? Split pools to keep costs in control?

The leaps in specs are slowing down in the console arena. The 8th gen consoles were a big upgrade but that was after about 8 years and no mid gen upgrade. Again, keep your expectations low for 9th gen specs if the X1X is sold at a loss at $499.

The handheld console market is just different and I will continue to ignore it. Its mostly been cheap junk spec wise, while Switch is somewhat cutting edge compared to 240p 3DS.

You can't necessarily look to history when things are changing and consoles are basically PCs now. Even the 7th gen was historically unusal given how long it was, sales were strong throughout the gen, and they're still active platforms. Many 7th gen games still have people playing online.

The X1X is a much more significant upgrade over the Pro. The GPU is getting the most attention, but here is also much more RAM for games, and a custom CPU that should be more efficient. That will go a long way if the plan is to keep X1X around in the 9th gen.

I hear they're bad CPUs, but in practice do impressive stuff. If anything, it seems like the GPU that developers struggle with most often.

Well they're calling it a custom and it does appear to have unique features. How that works in practice though, we'll see. At the very least it's a considerably faster CPU.

X1X will improve all the old content via more stable performance and 16x AF, but they could have achieved that with a $399 console as well. I see the X1X $499 upgrade more of a long term plan, 9th gen support. Its possible that won't be feasible but I do believe that's being taken into consideration.

I get the X1X isn't cutting edge specs per se, its still an impressive piece hardware that should be able AAA content really well, even if the OG X1 and PS4 can't.

I'm confident MS is investing in notable software. More importantly though they also have great 3rd party support which is what primarily moves core consoles.

It's well known that the XBox is more of a console for the Trump voter dude-bro demographics. Hope I didn't insult you for your choice of a workplace though.

No, that's not enough at all. ATM PS4 worldwide has a 3:1 even almost 5:1 sales ratio lately, compared to X1. They surely need to step up their game and that doesn't mean just selling another XBox to their hardcore fans. They need to aquire new buyers in order to stay relevant which is going to be quite a task looking at a 150+ price difference and a huge advantage concerning exclusive games the PS4(P) will have.

Imho they are a little bit too early...Sony imho played it wise to go the cheap route as not many people do have a 4K TV yet and a 350.- cheaper console by the same brand will play the same games. 

It comes down to how many broke dick gamers we have. They have 1 sale coming their way on the XB1X

What are you talking about?  About half of my coworkers are minorities, including most of the people I've heard talk about gaming.  You have a source for this or is it generalization based on hearsay?

Well for cost I was thinking more along the lines of old tech vs new tech as well as demand. Jaguar should cost less than Ryzen up until AMD is sick of dealing with far outdated architecture, or until the demand for Ryzen dries up a little. If Ryzen sales are through the roof, AMD could have trouble finding a way to supply a Ryzen based chip for PS and XB, unless they use a different foundry again.

It does look like XB1X is going to be 4k/60 for first party titles mostly, and checkerboarding otherwise. How much of that is due to the hardware, API, and devs, will remain to be seen. It is hard to imagine XB1X being able to handle games that play 4k/60 on a Ryzen based PS5 down the road though. That's if PS shoots for 60fps. Who knows, PS might aim for a 4k/30 based Ryzen, which wouldn't make the XB1X seem quite as outdated as it would be otherwise.

RAM is a tough one. While an APU is still most likely, with rumors of separate chips, split pools might make more sense then. 4GB DDR4 (DDR5?) and 16GB GDDR6 maybe? AMD seems to be pushing HBM hard, but seeing if they incorporate HBM into Navi, Ryzen APU, and future designs, should be a good indicator if HBM is headed to console. What Nvidia does as well would even further give an idea of HBM's reach. Having HBM on the interposer with an APU would be fantastic for saving space inside the console allowing for an even smaller shell to add to the wow factor, as well as multiple cost savings. With Vega supposedly only having 8GB HBM, its really hard to say how much would be needed for a console in 2-3 years time. 16GB for the entire APU possibly?