Feasibility of an upgradeable or forwards compatible console *spawn*
- Thread starter RudeCurve
- Start date
I think it's a very real concern for Sony. They have the power edge, and MAY (LOT of bridges to cross first) end up effectively losing it.
In that sense I think it's PSVR already having unintended consequences, as the PS4K is supposedly mostly for the VR.
When you are leading 36 million to 22 million, it seems downright crazy to rock the boat and possibly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
There's one very important thing though about these new revisions I hadn't considered....it wont be a PC situation because PC has unlimited configurations. In PS4k/XBO 1.5, you'll still end up with limited configurations. Lets say, to start with, each console will have just two. Even if that eventually scales to I dont know, 5 revisions within a generation, it's still a far, far cry from the PC situation. So perhaps, the devs will be able to target only 2 or 3 configurations of a console much better, and actually use the surplus power in the later variants. PERHAPS....then again we must double all those numbers given two consoles...it's still a finite number.
Obviously MisterCteam was right all along. Sony is panicking because MS is about to unleash DX12.1 which will unlock the 2nd gpu layer,2.5Dimension dark silicon, stacked 4-8 layer esram running internally at 10TB/s, polaris/vega ALU/architecture. /sarcasm
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Cell 2. Confirmed.
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Microsoft are also in the boat and are equally capable of rocking it. If Microsoft rock and Sony have no counter (not that I think console performance is that big a deal) then that's a problem.
Not rocking the boat in the hope that nobody else is a recipe for disaster. It's how Microsoft lost the browser market and the phone market.
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I'm sure Microsoft thought Xbox One with TV-in and a camera was a smart move. It was certainly a USP but it really doesn't matter how smart the manufacturer thinks they are, it's what consumers think that matters. Sony made smart moves with PS4 but even they were surprised at the success.
You simply can't predict what will and won't work based on consumer's reactions - not until the product is in the market. The iPhone was lauded as cool but not viable due to cost - "nobody will spend that much on a smartphone". Funny that..
There's a concept in analytic's called "variance". It says if you are way behind, in a sports game, or political race, what have you, you want to introduce variance to the game. So if you are in basketball game down by 20, you start shooting 3's. You could miss most and fall further behind. You could get lucky and start hitting them and closing the gap. But you know if you just keep playing as usual you are dead. If you keep shooting 2's, the odds may say you have a 98% chance to lose. If you start shooting three's, the odds of you losing by more than 30 points may increase, but also, the odds of you coming back to win may increase from 2% to 5% or 10%, which is what you want. You created variance. This isn't just some theory, it's based on statistics. Conversely if you are the comfortable leader, variance is your enemy. Donald Trump should stop saying stupid things, it creates variance in a race he's leading comfortably-oops, too late 
Some of those stupid things may actually help him, but, they create variance, which at this point as the frontrunner he doesn't want.
That's basically what I'm getting at vis a vis Sony's moves. To some extent, they are in control, variance is their enemy. Even if it may well never hurt them.
Some of those stupid things may actually help him, but, they create variance, which at this point as the frontrunner he doesn't want. That's basically what I'm getting at vis a vis Sony's moves. To some extent, they are in control, variance is their enemy. Even if it may well never hurt them.
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Another, simpler, way to put it is to change your tactics when your current tactics aren't working. There are also theories in strategy that suggest changing your tactics even when your current tactics are working because your opponent is likely to change theirs or because if they are already emotionally compromised by being beaten, further changes will hasten their demise.
Companies can either try to establish market conditions according to their plans or they can follow the market. I'm don't see modern Sony as the following type. They've been working on VR since 2009, these are long planned products coming to fruition not s crazy reaction to competitors.
I can well believe a more powerful console was in the mix a while. They would have known that PS4 would be releasing a few years before significant technology advancements. Ditto Microsoft.
I wanna say that this was one of the mosr sane posts regarding this whole thing. To my opinion of course. You are definetly not the first to view this from that perspective, but you've expressed it very well, and It's exactly the way I see this. Changing the rules of the game when leading doesn't sound like what a smart sony would do, and given ps4 current position and success, current sony has been very smart so far. And that, not through crazy game-changing moves, but by sane and mindfull decisioms and good execution.
That said, can I nit-pick your use of the word "theory"? If its statistically proven it is indeed a theory, which is good. You mean its not a hypothesis. But I guess you know that, I just wanted to be a very boring person.
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If I were to use an analogy, if MS and Sony were playing street fighter, and Sony was winning by just jump kicking, keep using the Jump kick until MS can figure out how to counter it. MS can try to jump kick but their characters jump kick isn't as good, do they better find a new way to counter the jump kick.
Yes I agree. Do not change unless you need to but not respecting your opponent and thinking there is no strategy your opponent could employ to counter your strategy is poor planning. Sony must still plan the next strategy to combat MS. How long MS it takes to change strategies and to counter them is how much time Sony has to plan their counter.
Meaning if this ps4.5 is real, then you should consider the reality that Sony has the data that shows that it's time for a strategy change. I really don't think they would unless they absolutely have to. 4K is questionable because there aren't many 4K TV sets. PS5 is reasonable, and it would support 4K would make a lot of sense to me.
I agree with that also. What i believe is sony definetly is studying a ps4.5 just in case ms comes up with some such thing. But I believe it won't come to fruiton unles MS does it first. Sony has no business reason to be the first in that.
Seems reasonable to me. Unless 4.5 just becomes ps5 and we have a 5-6 year cycle.
I thought this was interesting and maybe some people haven't seen it. Makes a lot of sense and somebody speaking the points that are out there
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/bioware-founder-on-ps4xbox-one-upgrades-itd-be-a-g/1100-6438664/
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/bioware-founder-on-ps4xbox-one-upgrades-itd-be-a-g/1100-6438664/
I'll repeat what I said in the PS4K thread - it's a nonsense comment from a multiplat dev who has to write for XB1, PS4, and PC including its myriad configurations. A console that runs the same codebase as another console isn't any pain at all. Like MSX computers. Konami didn't bitch and moan in 1984 when a new hardware compatible MSX was released because it was hardware compatible and ran the software with no extra effort.
I just had a thought how to "beat" the supposedly inevitable iterative hardware model. IMO all you have to do is stick to a strict 5 year cycle.
Lets take PS4.5 now. Lets say MS releases in winter of 2018, exactly 5 years after Xbox One, the "Xbox Two". Which at least attempts to be a traditional console generation leap.
To me it takes the sails out of Ps4.5 in so many ways. It'll be significantly more powerful one assumes. Worse, the Ps4.5 will still be shackled to PS4/XBO ports, by Sony's own decree, making the paper spec discrepancy much worse on a screen.
The Ps4.5 is supposedly slated for Q1 17, but I would bet money it slips off that, like everything in video games. How far? Who knows, but I'd guess Q3 2017 maybe. Either way, you can start hyping the Xbox 2 in 2018, and hype of power destroys we know from PS2 v Dreamcast.
People will wonder "why should I buy this Ps4 iteration when better is right around the corner?" Worse, joe average will not be seeing much in the way of graphical differences with Ps4.5, still shackled to last gen.
The key to this thinking is I expect the platform holders will not release their "iterations" faster than every ~3 years. A 5 year cycle would really destroy that IMO.
However I do realize phones release a brand new model every year. So in theory it can be done. Again, a 5 year cycle vs a yearly iterated console though, well I'm not so sure who wins in the consumer mind. The yearly iterated console may have more power most years, but you'll never see it onscreen anyway, as it will be forever shackled to the past. It would also mean the yearly console will essentially have a forever locked price point at a high level.
But yeah, stop being lazy and do timely 5 year cycles and I think at the least you take a lot of the wind out of console iterations, if not destroy them entirely.
Lets take PS4.5 now. Lets say MS releases in winter of 2018, exactly 5 years after Xbox One, the "Xbox Two". Which at least attempts to be a traditional console generation leap.
To me it takes the sails out of Ps4.5 in so many ways. It'll be significantly more powerful one assumes. Worse, the Ps4.5 will still be shackled to PS4/XBO ports, by Sony's own decree, making the paper spec discrepancy much worse on a screen.
The Ps4.5 is supposedly slated for Q1 17, but I would bet money it slips off that, like everything in video games. How far? Who knows, but I'd guess Q3 2017 maybe. Either way, you can start hyping the Xbox 2 in 2018, and hype of power destroys we know from PS2 v Dreamcast.
People will wonder "why should I buy this Ps4 iteration when better is right around the corner?" Worse, joe average will not be seeing much in the way of graphical differences with Ps4.5, still shackled to last gen.
The key to this thinking is I expect the platform holders will not release their "iterations" faster than every ~3 years. A 5 year cycle would really destroy that IMO.
However I do realize phones release a brand new model every year. So in theory it can be done. Again, a 5 year cycle vs a yearly iterated console though, well I'm not so sure who wins in the consumer mind. The yearly iterated console may have more power most years, but you'll never see it onscreen anyway, as it will be forever shackled to the past. It would also mean the yearly console will essentially have a forever locked price point at a high level.
But yeah, stop being lazy and do timely 5 year cycles and I think at the least you take a lot of the wind out of console iterations, if not destroy them entirely.
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And if console manufacturers made the chips in their boxes this may be possible but they're piggybacking AMD and Nvidia (previously) chipset developments. Sometimes it will pay to wait another year for a significant performance/cost advantage compared to launching now.
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