In short, the Neo is not required, I see no reason why we can't just plod along with the PS4 and Xbox One for the next 2-3 years before looking into a successor. But it is coming, just like thre Scorpio and we have to look at whether it has a place or not.
Agreed, it’s an interesting time to discuss and advance the discussion. One of the difficulties I’ve been noticing in this particular topic is that there are 3 contexts that are often used interchangeably during discussion, but are separate matters: marketing, value to the customer, technical capability.
In my post, I tried to stay as close as possible to the marketing context, and so often the replies to my message if they went into ‘value’ or ‘technical’ I generally avoided responding as they weren’t incorrect or invaluable, but they weren’t discussing the same topic I was.
I agree though, Scorpio needs to be discussed as well, in this topic I tried to look at Neo in pure isolation, mainly because my state is that I assume customers buy into an ecosystem because of their games, and if it’s strictly due to power, then these individuals would flip flop regardless, and therefore it would be pointless to discuss them as their behaviour goes towards the power leader. So the question for me would quickly become about the larger Sony base and whether Neo was a good product for them.
I agree, it was obvious that it was missing from E3, but personally feel that Sony was only going to announce it as a mid-cycle refresh with a bit more power to boot. But then Microsoft dropped the Scorpio-bomb and Sony must have panicked. I feel that the Neo pre-E3 wasn't going to be pushed as the be-all-and-end-all, but a refresh and premium product. So probably didn't need all the glitz and glamour.
Neo is worth the glitz and glamour, and I believe that they were in fact waiting for the games to showcase it’s power, however the challenge they face is that better looking titles are subjective and per title; it’s clear to all customers that not all titles would be equal in how much better they would appear on Neo. They probably noticed the challenge they were facing there when going up against ‘4K native’ which is both a specification and by default, objective.
As many have noted earlier, marketing is not difficult when the product can sell itself; technical checklists tend to be a strong form of marketing, as you either have it or don’t. Whether it’s a better product because more boxes are checked, well, you and I and many B3Ders know better than this. But that’s a separate topic than the messaging itself. The prominence of the internet helps inform users here much more than before, but topics such as draw distance, texture quality, AF, AA etc, AO, etc are topics that are probably well into enthusiast territory. These become more difficult to explain to the masses as to why it matters or whether they can even spot it.
Well, what's way more? $100 more?
To be continued.....
This is an interesting point, I guess this lies in marketing. The price is supposed to dictate demand, and in my second response I posted a price/value matrix to indicate what I thought the market would do depending on both where price and perceived performance would land.
To summarize, if Neo is visibly and noticeably better than PS4 and a significantly cheaper price, that would draw everyone to buy a Neo. A success for sure. But everyone would have to turn over their PS4s. That would be a beginning of the end of the PS4 generation as everyone would migrate to the visually stunning Neo. I’m unsure if people would be happy with that, fairly certain good will would be lost with some customers. There are a variety of markets who make up their purchasing base, but at the top of my mind I would assume price sensitive customers and parents (who bought for their kids) would be pissed off by that, or anyone that just got into the platform.
If the graphics were to provide 2x the graphical power (full use of 4.xx TF at 1080p) then would it be incorrect to double the price compared to PS4? It is double the performance right? Would the market see this as unfair? I think not. If the price is 1.5x but performance is 2x, then you’re looking at a great deal for the buyer.
Looking at GPUs, they are priced in exactly such a way that TF seems to align very closely with price. Once again not sure what Sony’s play will be here on pricing.
I guess it really depends on how many units Sony wants to sell.
I’ve determined that it should fall between 449-699. Based on the above points.
...continued
Resolution isn't everything. You can still show the same game at the same resolution but have it looking better. Better textures, Better geometry, Better framerate, Better shadows, Better effects. Also, I am in no doubt that the Neo can do 4K. Don't get me wrong, it will struggle to do 4K natively for games, unless it reduces geometry and framerate etc, but I see no reason why it couldn't do 1440p and upscale to 4K or even downscale to 1080p.
I don’t disagree at all, if you read some of my ramblings up and about this forum I’m more interested in seeing 1080p with more stuff on than to see 4x more pixels. At a certain point in time resolution can only do so much, especially when we see things like really low resolution shadows for instance. But to someone who only understands say ‘Hi-Fi’ setups and is looking to maximize their 4K TV investment, I see their priorities as being different.
Yes, in my opinion, the Neo is primarily to make the PSVR experience so much better. I am in no doubt that PSVR will look good with the PS4, but should look so much better with the NEO. Again, won't be down to framerate, but providing better geometry, draw-distance, textures and effects to make the difference between PS4 and Neo.
Right, once again on this note, I totally agree from a value perspective here, there are less difficulties marketing Neo as being the ultimate PSVR device. But they wedged themselves into a hard spot when they announced PSVR for PS4, released its spec and took pre-orders without letting people know Neo was coming. People bought in expecting to use their PS4 with this device.
... continued lol character limits
