Saying 3 x weaker at only $100 less is misrepresenting things though. Only it's GPU is weaker - everything else is the same or similar.

Not misrepresenting, giving how marketing can and will target it. Also if they have just GPU weaker an all else similar then they will be making a very unbalanced system. RAM, bandwidth, CPU, and all rest must have a good balance. You don't just make one thing 3x faster and leave the rest, that would give you major bottlenecks.

It is misrepresenting, just because you are speculating how a marketing department 'might' frame it in a certain way doesn't change that. MS could just as easily market Lockhart as 'the same great experience as the PS5 / Annaconda, only in full HD for an unbeatable price!'.

How is it unbalanced if the target resolution is so much lower? Are you saying it's impossible make 2 skus with the same CPU that are balanced, based around 2 different resolutions? You see it all the time on PC forums - a GPU will be recommended based on A) what other components they already have & B) what their target resolution / frame-rate are. By your logic there is only one GPU option for any given setup, regardless of target resolution / frame-rate - which is incorrect!

So, you're getting a machine that can do everything the top sku can do but at a lower resolution. 

That is because you are holding the top SKU down, and that is where Pemalite, me and several others are complaining on this philosophy. But since Sony first party won't have this issue you'll see they smoking the waters on Xbox exclusives and most 3rd parties.

Not necessarily - I mean Switch can run Wolfenstein at a lower resolution and the difference between it & PS4 & XB1 is a lot wider than Lockhart/Annaconda would be. If MS is building these skus from the ground up with the intention of delivering 1080/4K versions of the same games they should be able to do it in a way that doesn't overly limit the scope / features of a game. Remember the CPU is the same & the RAM adequate for the lower resolution output.

I'd also say that if you show the average gamer the same game running at 1080 & 4k on anything less than a 65" display that they're not going to appreciate a lot of difference.

Probably won't, not a problem to marketing. People believe more what they want to believe than what they can really see.

You're waaaay overstating this. People don't just blindly believe whatever a marketing department is throwing at them. These are just 2 statements MS are currently running on the XB1S page : 'Games play best on Xbox One' & 'The best in 4K entertainment' - point being that marketing push whatever BS they want, regardless of where the truth actually lies.

So, in fact, a more accurate way to frame the situation (imo) is to say for £100 less (or whatever the difference is), you're getting an experience that most people will see as almost the same as the premium model... Sounds like a good deal to me!

Sure some will find it a good deal. Almost 40M people found X1 a good deal.

Ok, so you're now agreeing with my point? 

The pitfall that I believe you and others are falling into is to assume that the general console gamer cares about the nuts and bolts of the hardware or the nuance of performance as much as you do, or in fact, at all. If I was to ask my friends who own consoles what frame-rate they're playing at I know that I'd be greeted with blank stares. They play the new Fifa and maybe one other game per year and that's it. You & I likely spend more time on this forum than a lot of console owners actually spend gaming...

And the pitfall in your argument is you believing that people need to see the difference to accept it exist, marketing already assured they this exist.

Most people won't see much difference between PS4 vanila and Pro (still 20% of the sales are for the 100 USD more Pro) nor between X1S and X1X (but some have it at almost 50/50 split) but they were told which is better.

This is another head-scratcher... You're argument is that MS shouldn't release a lower SKU because only 80% of PS4 owners & 50% of XB1 owners (50% seems way too low btw) went for the less powerful sku? Huh? Surely this supports my argument in validating the effectiveness of a lower powered/priced model, not yours! I'm still looking for this supposed 'pitfall' in my argument.

And I don't think the 'early adopter' thing really applies here. It's not like a brand new technology, like say, the new folding phones Samsung or Huawei are launching, where the gen 1 design will have issues and the price will be eye-watering. Consoles have become iterative, with solid hardware out the gate & competitively priced. To go back to phones, if I buy the new oneplus 7 within the 1st year of its launch am I an early adopter? To me, the term only makes sense (within the context of this discussion) when there is some major drawback that someone faces when making that early purchase (ie. very expensive or premature hardware), which requires that person to be really passionate to take the plunge.

You may disagree with the term as much as you want, but consoles will still sell under 20M first year as production isn't really high, so you can use your economy of scale and price reduction with maturity of production. If you think early adopters don't exist, why do you think there is a limited number of people that accept to buy the console with almost no game for 400 and others will wait for more games while others for lower price?

I suppose my issue here is that I think the term early adopter implies a super-enthusiast - like someone who'll go out and buy a gen 1 folding phone for 2 grand. In year 1 we'll likely have Fifa / Madden / Call of Duty / etc., which will be enough for some 'moderate' gamers to spend 3-500 bucks. I agree that most 'enthusiasts' will buy the top sku but that there will be plenty of interest from the 'moderate' crowd to see strong Lockhart sales in year 1/2.

There will be plenty of people who enjoy Madden or the yearly Call of Duty who will buy the new PS or XB when it releases because they want to see what the new lick of paint looks like on their favourite characters and they have some spare cash... ($300 to $500 every 5-7 years isn't a lot of money to a lot of people)

So?

So... there will be a non-enthusiast crowd happy to spend on a console when it launches & that console could very well be a lower-powered model - thought the implication was pretty obvious....

As for your price suggestions, let's say you are correct and we have XBLockhart $299 / PS5 $399 / XBAnaconda $499 - I personally think that would put MS in a good position - they will have a good chance at cornering the value-focussed customers on one end and the enthusiast at the other. When it comes time to drop the price, they'll do so across both models to maintain the gap / value propositions.

They weren't able to win against Sony at similar power, lower price, head start, better multiplats. Why do you think they would be able to win on a much weaker and 1/4 res cheaper option and an more expensive almost equal performance?

Where did I say MS was going to win? The best MS can likely aim for is a partial recovery & the best way to do this is to differentiate themselves from Sony. Offering a 'value' sku is a good start. And also, I like how you jump to the conclusion that spending £100 dollars less would give them a machine that's a fraction of PS5, but that spending $100 dollars more would only get them 'almost equal' performance...

And why would it be a marketing nightmare exactly? Both Sony and MS have 2 different skus right now, I don't see why the staggered release makes any difference... Nintendo will also likely soon have multiple skus. Look at how many skus iPhone has - doesn't seem to hurt their sales any! If a customer doesn't understand the difference between full HD & 4K then it's likely they'll be just fine with Lockhart anyway, which to me legitimises it's existence in the first place!

The nightmare is for MS not Sony. Sony will be able to say they have a console that is cheaper than Anaconda while delivering same 4K and much stronger than 1080p Lockhart. If you really think resolution and the rest is almost irrelevant to most people then how will MS justify 200 USD more on Anaconda versus Lockhart?

Staggered releases allow for double dips and keep relevance of the system against stronger baseline of PCs, double SKU on release just give lack of focus. Very big difference than HDD size that X360, PS3 used.

I really don't get what the problem is here. Anaconda would be aimed at the enthusiast market who are willing to spend extra for 'the best', Lockhart would be aimed at everybody else - what is so confusing?

If, according to you, the only thing that many gamers understand is resolution then why don't Sony & MS save themselves a fortune and just stick a PS5 / XB2 sticker on the Pro / XB1X? After all they can be marketed as 4K which is all that matters right?

Look at the GPU market - a minority choose to spend hundreds of dollars more for relatively modest gains and the majority choose mid-range cards which give them more bang for their buck. Why should this cost/performance analysis not be similar on consoles?

It´s just silly to think that people will base their choise in hardware comparison alone. With many people, games will be the most important factor of choise. Other factor will be friends in the network (this factor is huge compared to last gen). So no mater how many teraflops or bandwith, Sony is having the edge by far, at least if we consider sales worldwide. Maybe in USA things are more even. Also if the hardware difference is 4k with 8 Teraflops compared to 4k with 12 teraflops, It won´t be enough to win if you don´t have a good library of games. Xbox ONE X has 6 teraflops against 4.2, and still, 2013 machines with 1.84 and 1.4 are selling more units. I only hope, for a personal taste in quality graphics and fps, that the PS5 has more than 10 Teraflops with enough bandwith.

No man, you really didn't got it. If you have a system that is balanced to that GPU of let's say 12TF in PS5 case and 16TF for Anaconda, if you just cut back GPU to 4 TF and keep all the rest the same to have only the GPU being weaker you are making all rest excessive to the GPU you have.

Ok, I'm gonna answer these points then likely leave it at that as I've been in a back and forth with you before and it just turns into an endless game of incoherent rambling and point dodging...  

I'm not saying it is impossible to have 4TF and 16TF balanced SKUs, I'm saying that for both to be balanced it won't be just GPU that is 4x weaker. And sorry to burst your bubble, but the weaker system will always hold out the rest, so don't get surprised when Sony 1st parties look much better than most games even on Anaconda, plus having much more going on because they don't have to go for the same ceiling. Even now you would have a hard time finding much games on X1X prettier than SM and GoW running on Pro.

1st up, even if the we say that the components outside of the GPU of Lockhart are relatively overpowered (which I don't think needs to be the case), then that bodes well for the 'ceiling' as the rest of the specs can match Anaconda. What you're essentially saying is that you cannot have 2 setups targeting 2 different resolutions, with the same CPU be balanced. That's just plain wrong....

Switch isn't 4x weaker than X1, sorry to tell you that.

So you agreed that Marketing will tell whatever they can get away without accusing of lie, thanks. And a lot of people do believe on the marketing, if they didn't no one would put that much money on marketing.

Not sure what your point is here - you say the manufacturers have to hit a certain spec to allow them to market that message but at the same time agree that marketing can be BS, which would therefore not require the manufacturer to hit certain specs but instead make shit up. Overall I believe that Switch will be weaker in relation to XB1 / PS4 than Lockhart to Anaconda but even if they're about the same my point stands - they got Doom & Wolfenstein running at reduced resolution which wouldn't be possible if your 'ceiling' analogy held true.

How am I agreeing to your point? Some people can be either big or small amount. Some people find a good deal on what most would say is terrible.

Your head is turning over because you are adamant in believing people won't see as much better proposition to be 3x stronger at only 100 USD more, only 25% outpowered but 100 USD less. That is a very good position for Sony to put themselves in. You said people don't see the difference, and I showed you that even if they don't (your argument, not mine) still 20% of PS4 sales were Pro while perhaps 50% of Xbox were X. That is plenty of people that buy even if there isn't much perceived difference.

It's not 3 times stronger - continued misrepresentation on your part - what is it with this obsession to boil down a console to only one of it's components? And I said that the average gamer wouldn't appreciate the difference, how is that statement in any way at odds with a minority buying PS4 Pro? And do you have a source on 50% of XB1 sales being the X - seems way too high to me.

You wanting to fit a word to a definition you want, doesn't change reality. PS3 at 600 had a lot of people lining up to buy it, X1 at 500 and very bad review had record sales before failing down. Also, non-enthusiast would prefer to just buy the game on what they already have than pay 299 to play the same game on a new system. If they aren't enthusiast about how much it would improve why would they be there buying system on launch, this doesn't make much sense.

As I said before, some people have cash to spend and want the new version of their console to play the new versions of their favourite games. You can be excited about the PS5 & XB2 without caring much about the technical nuances. There are plenty of iPhone users who buy the latest model without caring about what's actually going on under the hood.

So you accept MS won't win, so not sure why you are defending this as a good model. If 4TF is 299, 12TF 399 (PS5) and 16TF is 499 it is pretty obvious from where it comes that for only 100 more you get 3x the experience and on the next 100 more you only get 33% improvement, so the middle machine gets a much easier selling.

You have a very binary understanding of a very complex space. At the end of each gen there isn't a referee who holds up the glove of the guy with most hardware sales and declares a winner. They're businesses with different models and targets. MS doesn't have to sell more units than Sony to move their business forward, their focus is on their online service reaching as many devices as possible (see plans on PC & Switch). Them offering a lower-priced, entry-level system fits this plan perfectly as it promises to sell more systems (and thus subscriptions) than a premium-only model. 

And it's hilarious that you frame gaming from 1080 to 4K as '3x the experience' - I think you should be less concerned about others being misled by marketing and look closer to home. It's just such a nonsense comment.

Also, you've just made this price / spec comparison up. Who's to say that Anaconda & PS5 won't be identical performance & price - meaning that MS will match up with Sony but offer a value model in addition...?

If you don't get the problem perhaps you better analyse better your argument before keeping at them. PS4Pro and X1X plays the same games as PS4 and X1 so they couldn't call it PS5 and X2, also it wouldn't be a proper gen jump nor would it be timed away enough to justify a new gen.

As is your habit, you're missing my point. I wasn't suggesting that they literally relabel the current consoles... (come on - really?) What I was suggesting is that if everything is just going to be boiled down to 1080 & 4K then why should Sony or MS bother trying to push the boat out spec wise? What I'm trying to highlight is your comically simplistic framing of a console's perceived value being a reflection of it's output resolution.

I totally agree - there are many influences at play when someone is choosing a new console. Hardware is but one. I just don't get this opinion of some that MS giving the consumer meaningful options within their skus is a bad thing. MS need to differentiate themselves and a value-sku would be one way to do that. Their great value subscription model is another. Output from a host of newly acquired studios is another. Will it be enough to improve on their showing this gen - they're giving themselves a good chance!

I totally agree - there are many influences at play when someone is choosing a new console. Hardware is but one. I just don't get this opinion of some that MS giving the consumer meaningful options within their skus is a bad thing. MS need to differentiate themselves and a value-sku would be one way to do that. Their great value subscription model is another. Output from a host of newly acquired studios is another. Will it be enough to improve on their showing this gen - they're giving themselves a good chance!