I'm also unconvinced by your argument that diminishing returns means older games a retaining their value. GTAV on PS4 is WAY better than on PS3, and worth an upgrade to many. But most importantly if gamers are happy to play old games going forwards because they don't look too bad, it means less reason to buy new games, which is turn would mean the end of the gaming industry as is. Unlike old movies which one can put on for 2 hours, or an old CD you can listen to in the background of doing something else, playing an old game can mean dedicating ten+, even tens of hours, which is leaving less time for new games. I think the limits of the time resource means what gaming time people have will be spent mostly on the latest, greatest thing. Why fire up Ryse on your XB4k when Epic's Roam is better and a new experience and what everyone else is playing? Or play GT6 when GT8 is better in every way*?
Wrong. GTAV will not be WAY better. Everything we've been shown so far suggests it will be pretty much the SAME experience - with better graphics. Graphics, contrary what many here hope to believe does not dictate the experience. It does when it offers better immersion, but I'm pretty sure people were just as immersed back in the day when they first played Kojima's masterpeace MGS even though the graphics were practically a pixellated mess (compared to todays games). Or the first Tomb Raider for that matter. What we lacked in those days in graphics and were representated as primitive blocks, our brain made up for it by adding the rest of the immersion. It's a similar process we experience when we read books.. Our mind captures what's written, and everything that is not, is made up by our imagination along the way. Now I'm not going to argue that we should remain in the stone age or in 2d space, because the advancements in technology have clearly made for better games. A prime example is the step GTA went through when going from birds-eye view to fully 3d - and each and every new game offered more exciting gameplay possibilities, larger cities, more interaction and eventually, multiplayer gaming over the internet. This all costs performance and what as essentially made gaming better. Graphics as a singular entity has not - or at least not to the degree that would constitute calling GTAV for PS4 way better. It will be the same game, with substantially better visuals - but still the same game. Using the same argument; playing any game on PC and scaling down the graphics to meet a more minimal hardware setup, doesn't make the game worse. It just makes it less pretty. Same applies to Tomb Raider: Definite Edition by the way. I own both, have played both. Given the choice, sure, I'll take the best version outthere, but it's still just the same game with better graphics. Which is why I never completed it on PS4 so far.
Now that's all pretty besides the point; back to your argument that if gamers are happy to play old games, they will lose interest in new games... well, if the new games offer little to no progress or excitement, then yes, perhaps they will sell less. In the end, they will always be messured against what we know, what we've experienced. If a hypothetical GT8 is worse than GT6, don't blame the people for not buying the new, blame the developers. The same pretty much applies to any other form of entertainment outthere. More importantly, I don't really see this happening. We play games for the experience - similarly to why we read books, and mostly the same old crime thrillers with slightly different characters, motives etc. As long as new games continue to offer us something good, I'm not sure people will continue to buy. It's not different then buying a game today, playing it, then buying a new game within a few months that offers a different experience. We buy multiple games per generation because they offer many different experiences and because we'd get bored if we only played the same old game over and over. It's no different with movies, books and games.
Anyway, the argument about diminishing returns was more that B/C is more important now than it was 10 years ago. Nothing more to it. The same argument applies to the future; I think it will be even more important in 10 years for the same reasons.
I know B/C comes at an immense cost for console designers. As a computer programmer myself, I can relate to that. I'm speaking more from a market POV where it will be ever important for a console vendor to find ways to bind their existing costumers who made large investments to their eco-system. The sad thing is; you're probably right to the degree that even if PS4 had backwards compatibility, that we (me included) probably wouldn't spend that much time playing old games. And even if your arguments are simply logical and accurate (that we don't really require B/C because on a practical level, the costs far outhweigh how often people would use it), I still think the psychology in consumers will make them want it. Because once you've invested a lot into a given platform, you don't really want to throw it out when you migrate to newer hardware. And every now and then, there will be a game that will remain a classic - which IMO there are many PSN games that meet this criteria. Games bought online and linked to a PSN account I still use on newer hardware, but can't be used anymore.
