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[DragonKnight]

"try to enjoy what I have" my god... you are still going to get great games on your PS4

I wish the word 'knee' was spelled 'nee' so I could say that the n in neogaf stood for nee jerk reactions.

Also your avatar is perfect considering the post you quoted lol

 

[autoduelist]

You can still buy a console once a gen - you just skip in between machines. You even get the benefit where after your 6 year wait, you can either get the new shiny expensive console, or the cheaper interim console that released a few years before but which is still an improvement over your current machine and will play all the same games as that new console that just came out.

But this fundamentally fails to understand -why- I like console gaming. I don't want to skip 'in between machines' and feel like I'm having a sub-par experience. The whole reason I buy consoles is so I can have 5-10 years of the same 'best' experience all my friends are having, knowing we'll all eventually get a nice big jump into the next gen.

I'm certainly not going to buy the 'cheaper interim console' that released a few years before [basically, the 4.5 in a couple years]. That would feel like throwing away money if I suspected the PS5 was on the horizon.

Basically, iterative consoles takes away the very reason I buy consoles in the first place. And this is coming from someone who bought a PS4 at launch. Most consoles owners don't even buy into a gen till year 3 or 4, and I think this could ostracize them even more than it does me. It's one thing buying a cheap PS4 halfway through a gen but knowing it's still king of the hill for another 3-5 years... it's quite another knowing it's already outdated.

I definitely feel where you are coming from. But I think with a busy schedule like you have, maybe consider an alternative timeline.

Being busy will possibly inevitably make you miss parts of a generation here or there. Let's say you want to jump into Xbox or PlayStation a few years after a generation starts, and a .5 console is around the corner in the Fall of the same year.

With this model, you might have 2 options depending on when you decide to get a new console. You could spend less to get the base experience with the same games, or wait a few months to get the stronger hardware at a bit of a premium price. Either way, there's lots of games to buy when you jump into the generation a couple or more years late.

In a way it gives you a choice. Do you want to spend a bit more for the 1337 experience, with up to date hardware that happened to come at the time you got back into gaming? Or would you rather have a little less powerful box but have opportunity to buy more games that you might be interested in? Now you have a choice. After all, you came 3 years later, why not have 3 years more powerful hardware?

Like has been said many times it is kind of like a PC-like choice. It's good in some ways, bad in others. But at the same time depending on your timing of buying a console it can be very good.

Maybe you will get only PS5.5 based on this model, and maybe that will serve your needs better. More games are already out because the generation is already half way in, and you have the more powerful version of the PS5, etc etc.

There's definitely some drawbacks and some good points about this new system. I think the main thing is this: it gives the "new" factor to people who want to jump in at different times during the console life cycle. That is the ideal scenario from Sony or any hardware manufacturer perspective. The platform doesn't "age" in the same way as a traditional platform would. So whenever you do decide to get a new console, at the start of the gen, or the middle of the gen, you can still get a newly powerful console, which is really not so bad.

I don't think the majority of people buying into a gen in year 3 or 4 are looking for that 'new factor'. They are looking for the cheap price for hardware that still is 'new gen' and relevant. As soon as the PS4.5 is released, the PS4 is no longer the 'best console', and it will potentially ostracize those that still haven't bought into the gen [which is the traditional majority of buyers].

I think early adopters don't really realize how -slow- the buy in to a gen is. While my PS4 may be 'old' by now, in a traditional gen most people who will own a PS4 still haven't bought it yet! But they will, and that's in part because it's going to be 'new' till the PS5. Iterative steals that.

Those people aren't suddenly going to want a ps4.5, either, because the whole point of waiting 3/4 years was for the price breaks while still getting that 'new' machine.

 

[-Horizon-]

"try to enjoy what I have" my god... you are still going to get great games on your PS4

Great games but not the best available.
Not sure what's so hard to understand about that.

 

[icespide]

Great games but not the best available.
Not sure what's so hard to understand about that.

I hope you find some way to still enjoy them

 

[-Horizon-]

I hope you find some way to still enjoy them

I'll try my darn hardest. That you can be sure.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

Unless the PS4.5 is subsidized by contracts, and is a MOBILE swiss army knife of media consumption, social communication, I don't see why they keep trying to compare it to smartphone as far as the public's motivation to put up with more upgrade cycles.

Isn't the smartphone market starting to slow down also now that its been saturated?
http://www.zdnet.com/article/smartp...-dont-see-the-point-in-upgrading-your-iphone/

 

[Opus Angelorum]

Great games but not the best available.
Not sure what's so hard to understand about that.

I understand your point.

Out of curiosity though, do you currently feel the same way about PS4 games that perform better on PC?

Or is your point purely about exclusive console games?

 

[-Horizon-]

I understand your point.

Out of curiosity though, do you currently feel the same way about PS4 games that perform better on PC?

Or is your point purely about exclusive console games?

I only game on consoles.

 

[gundamkyoukai]

Unless the PS4.5 is subsidized by contracts, and is a MOBILE swiss army knife of media consumption, social communication, I don't see why they keep trying to compare it to smartphone as far as the public's motivation to put up with more upgrade cycles.

Isn't the smartphone market starting to slow down also now that its been saturated?
http://www.zdnet.com/article/smartp...-dont-see-the-point-in-upgrading-your-iphone/

which why they won't be on a smartphone cycle .

 

[potatohead]

I don't think the majority of people buying into a gen in year 3 or 4 are looking for that 'new factor'. They are looking for the cheap price for hardware that still is 'new gen' and relevant. As soon as the PS4.5 is released, the PS4 is no longer the 'best console', and it will potentially ostracize those that still haven't bought into the gen [which is the traditional majority of buyers].

But that's the thing though. Most customers are not the same. Some customers might be coming and going from gaming. There's just two options. The cheap one. And the more powerful one. Each is gonna attract different parts of the consumer base for different reasons. Not unlike people buy different GPUs at different times.

Look at the PC market. PC gamers talk gung-ho about the highest end video card all day every day. But what do most people buy? The low-range and mid-range options. But there is still excitement from a subset for the most expensive and most powerful option. There's even enthusiasm for the low and mid-range options too.

This is all about touching each part of the market for as long as possible. You're enticing the high-end enthusiast market and engaging the early adopters twice in 6 years rather than just once. The timing is ideal for early adopters to be ready to buy another revision.

It's even potentially going to get people to buy 2 separate PS4s even outside of the reason for one failing. There's a subset of this PlayStation population really going to buy 2 consoles for one generation of games. How crazy is that? It's good business sense, and acumen, for identifying what the high-end market wants.

And in 2 years? This model will be the only one available probably. And it will still only be 2 years old. Like the more I think about it, it's just strategic genius to have this .5 revision and 3 year gap between them. In fact I'm starting to think it may have been stupid not to do it in the 7th generation (except for the fact of having bespoke hardware in Cell and PowerPC, that would have made it much harder).

 

[Blastoise]

Even mobile phones aren't subsidised any more.

 

[StrongBlackVine]

I understand your point.

Out of curiosity though, do you currently feel the same way about PS4 games that perform better on PC?

Or is your point purely about exclusive console games?

That is where I disconnect. No fucks given about games being inferior to PC versions, but tiers on within the same brand is a life altering event. It's like consoles are looked at some form of socialism. "We're all the same!"

 

[RootCause]

I'll try my darn hardest. That you can be sure.

I can understand the concerns, I mean, just take a look at HW Legends. OG 3ds wasn't taken into consideration.

ps: you still actively collecting miibos? :d

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

Even mobile phones aren't subsidised any more.

Yeah, but I would expect their sales to drop even more now that a customer is going to have to pay $700 if they want to upgrade instead of 100/200 and another contract.

 

[orochi91]

I totally get what you're saying, and in that context I agree. This could be the way the console industry moves forward from here on out. However there is nothing to say that we'll have consistent console XYP and .5 or "K" upgrades for the next 10-15 years. I think console manufactures will take it on a case by case (or generation by generation) basis, always re-evaluating what makes the most sense for their profitability at the time, not always what we want or expect. i.e. PS5 and the equivalent Xbox might last ~6 years (starting in 2020-2021) without a mid-gen upgrade, and new tech, ideas, etc come along by the late 2020s that changes the course of console gaming again.

I do think that we can see how the console industry will move forward for the next 5 years, but not the next 15 years.

Yea, fair point, there's little reason to believe that the iterative cycle would be as straightforward or predictable as I had illustrated.

This is uncharted territory for the gaming industry, so making predictions a couple generation ahead would be a pointless endeavor.

If Sony is planning on consistently putting out mid-gen refreshes, to pad-out future console generations, then I'll likely buy into those upgraded units and forgo launch units altogether.

 

[WordAssassin]

The new quote in the OP about "customers are used to buying expensive electronics more frequently due to smart phones" is kind of a bullshit explaination tactic because while the actual price of a smartphone may be $400-800, nobody is actually paying that when they walk into the store. They either paid a much, much lower fee offset by a multi-year contract or, now, they pay it off in monthly installments over a year or two.

That doesn't translate into dropping $500 on a new console on a yearly or even bi-yearly basis AT ALL. Not even close. And then comparing it to other expensive electronics like iPads or computers, customers don't buy those on a yearly cycle either. Or bi-yearly. Maybe some do but to base the entire direction of your console business is fucking crazy to me.

 

[poodpick]

I wonder if DLC that launches after the Neo for older games will be required to have a Neo mode.

 

[StrongBlackVine]

The new quote in the OP about "customers are used to buying expensive electronics more frequently due to smart phones" is kind of a bullshit explaination tactic because while the actual price of a smartphone may be $400-800, nobody is actually paying that when they walk into the store. They either paid a much, much lower fee offset by a multi-year contract or, now, they pay it off in monthly installments over a year or two.

That doesn't translate into dropping $500 on a new console on a yearly or even bi-yearly basis AT ALL. Not even close. And then comparing it to other expensive electronics like iPads or computers, customers don't buy those on a yearly cycle either. Or bi-yearly. Maybe some do but to base the entire direction of your console business is fucking crazy to me.

Sony had said nothing that indicates such a short time frame between iterations. 3 years seems reasonable to me.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I only game on consoles.

You did not answer the question. In fact, you completely dodged it with this non-answer.

That is where I disconnect. No fucks given about games being inferior to PC versions, but tiers on within the same brand is a life altering event. It's like consoles are looked at some form of socialism. "We're all the same!"

.

 

[icespide]

I wonder if DLC that launches after the Neo for older games will be required to have a Neo mode.

I'd guess no

 

[RoboPlato]

Sony had said nothing that indicates such a short time frame between iterations. 3 years seems reasonable to me.

Yeah, 3-4 years allows the upgrades to be reasonably enticing and substantial.

 

[potatohead]

Yea, fair point, there's little reason to believe that the iterative cycle would be as straightforward or predictable as I had illustrated.

This is uncharted territory for the gaming industry, so making predictions a couple generation ahead would be a pointless endeavor.

If Sony is planning on consistently putting out mid-gen refreshes, to pad-out future console generations, then I'll likely buy into those upgraded units and forgo launch units altogether.

Agree.

Especially for the mid-gen buyer, this scenario is extremely nice. When the mid-gen buyers buy their consoles, there's already more games available at first touch with the system, plus you get an immediately modern system as well.

 

[-Horizon-]

I can understand the concerns, I mean, just take a look at HW Legends. OG 3ds wasn't taken into consideration.

ps: you still actively collecting miibos? :d

Not much anymore.

You did not answer the question. In fact, you completely dodged it with this non-answer.

Sorry about that, misread their question.
I've for the most part stuck with first party and exclusive games. I'd rarely if ever buy a multi console 3rd party game if only because they've not really interested me. So I've never had to deal with "this game runs better on so and so".
Am I bothered by the few 3rd party games that run better on pc that I own only on consoles? Kinda. Seeing games like the Witcher 3 look so good in certain screenshots certainly makes me want to make a gaming PC one day.
But that's a rabbit hole I don't plan on jumping into any time soon.

 

[Omnistalgic]

That is where I disconnect. No fucks given about games being inferior to PC versions, but tiers on within the same brand is a life altering event. It's like consoles are looked at some form of socialism. "We're all the same!"

I don't understand the logic myself.

PC versions of the same games are superior, but they don't care because they don't game there?

Well you won't be gaming "there" on Neo either, so why...

You know what, if I understand it, then I turn into them. I just can't...

 

[BlitzerRadic]

No it doesn't. There is a floor for how much you can drop the price. Besides, if Sony launches Neo at $399 it will in some very real way cannibalize PS4 sales.

What difference does that make? Either way you are buying a PS4 and potentially getting locked into Sony's ecosystem

 

[potatohead]

No it doesn't. There is a floor for how much you can drop the price. Besides, if Sony launches Neo at $399 it will in some very real way cannibalize PS4 sales.

 

[potatohead]

I don't understand the logic myself.

PC versions of the same games are superior, but they don't care because they don't game there?

Well you won't be gaming "there" on Neo either, so why...

You know what, if I understand it, then I turn into them. I just can't...

Be one of us. You know you want to. Resistance is futile! ^^

 

[RedSwirl]

It would probably help a lot if there was some kind of upgrade program, but I imagine retailers would do that regardless of what Sony does. And I still think most consumers, most mainstream consumers, wouldn't be obsessed with having the latest and most powerful model. Nintendo has the New 3DS out but people are still buying the 2DS because it's $80. Sony's got the right messaging that this is specifically for the most dedicated people.

If you're that obsessed with always having the latest gaming thing that you feel forced to upgrade, then you should probably be buying high-end PC graphics cards. Consoles are no longer the "latest" gaming tech. Third party developers aren't gonna leave behind the existing install base by making games that are unrunnable on the base PS4 (not anymore than they already are anyway), and Sony damn well won't let its first party studios do that.

Like I said, I can accept iterative hardware within traditional generation cycle. I'm fine with it as long as they don't force Neo forward compatible with PS5.
Sure I still wish they cancel Neo but that's not going to happen now.

That's going to be an interesting challenge to handle from a marketing standpoint. I think if Sony commits to this upgrade model, when you finally get a PS5 it'll just be another upgrade instead of a total reset, but at what point do you "sunset" an older model? Maybe it would be best if Sony launched a PS5 at some point and branded it a new generation while still giving developers a choice of whether to make forwards compatible games. It would be the equivalent of how they do cross-gen games now, except the different generations would be combined into one SKU. EA would probably make sports games for PS5 compatible all the way back to the base PS4. Activision would likely do the same with Call of Duty. Most likely a minority of games would end up being PS5-only if you're talking about the big publishers.

If you wanna compare to iOS, there are iOS apps and games that are still receiving patches to make sure they run properly on iOS7 -- basically for people still using the iPhone 4 or 4S which is roughly six-year-old hardware.

 

[Curufinwe]

The new quote in the OP about "customers are used to buying expensive electronics more frequently due to smart phones" is kind of a bullshit explaination tactic because while the actual price of a smartphone may be $400-800, nobody is actually paying that when they walk into the store. They either paid a much, much lower fee offset by a multi-year contract or, now, they pay it off in monthly installments over a year or two.

I do. Lots of people buy off contract phones because it's cheaper in the long run.

 

[Badlucktroll]

I bet this fucker is gonna be $599 or more and won't replace the current ps4. Still getting one.

 

[RadarScope1]

Sounds like a 2017 release to me.

I still don't understand the fuss about mid-gen upgrades. I'm a lifelong console-only gamer and I've read the posts and explanations about why people are pissed and I just can't identify with it. House's quotes about why they are doing this make perfect sense to me, and it seems like they are handling this the right way by waiting 3+ years and making it a truly premium alternative product.

 

[Decado]

I'm mostly interested in full 4k playback. For gaming I'll stick with pc.

 

[BibiMaghoo]

That is where I disconnect. No fucks given about games being inferior to PC versions, but tiers on within the same brand is a life altering event. It's like consoles are looked at some form of socialism. "We're all the same!"

I get it because I game on both PC and console. I have to upgrade my PC, so I want my console to last a span greater, it is why I buy them, to know that with one purchase I will be running games as good as they can be on the system. This is now no longer true, and so a console does not serve it's purpose to me.

All you people that don't understand this are seemingly as confused as I am that you don't get it. It's a simple concept. People want to spend once and be good. People don't want to spend once then have inferior shit immediately afterwards. Consoles were safe in this regard, because revisions did not make games any better. Now they do, and that fucking sucks.

 

[TalonJH]

Edit: Quoted the wrong person .
Understand that PS4 and Neo are the same platform. It doesn't matter if Neo cuts into PS4 sales because they are the same. It would be surprising if they report separate sales.

 

[kaiyo]

But that's the thing though. Most customers are not the same. Some customers might be coming and going from gaming. There's just two options. The cheap one. And the more powerful one. Each is gonna attract different parts of the consumer base for different reasons. Not unlike people buy different GPUs at different times.

Look at the PC market. PC gamers talk gung-ho about the highest end video card all day every day. But what do most people buy? The low-range and mid-range options. But there is still excitement from a subset for the most expensive and most powerful option. There's even enthusiasm for the low and mid-range options too.

This is all about touching each part of the market for as long as possible. You're enticing the high-end enthusiast market and engaging the early adopters twice in 6 years rather than just once. The timing is ideal for early adopters to be ready to buy another revision.

It's even potentially going to get people to buy 2 separate PS4s even outside of the reason for one failing. There's a subset of this PlayStation population really going to buy 2 consoles for one generation of games. How crazy is that? It's good business sense, and acumen, for identifying what the high-end market wants.


And in 2 years? This model will be the only one available probably. And it will still only be 2 years old. Like the more I think about it, it's just strategic genius to have this .5 revision and 3 year gap between them. In fact I'm starting to think it may have been stupid not to do it in the 7th generation (except for the fact of having bespoke hardware in Cell and PowerPC, that would have made it much harder).

But what is the point of having people double dip on a console when they make little to no money from console sales. They would rather have them buy more games with that money and earn more.

 

[The Artisan]

I don't understand the logic myself.

PC versions of the same games are superior, but they don't care because they don't game there?

Well you won't be gaming "there" on Neo either, so why...

You know what, if I understand it, then I turn into them. I just can't...

It's supposed to be the same platform though.

 

[Keihart]

This is an inevitable experiment with how succesful the smartphone market is, personally i hope that this model crashes and burn in the console market, because in my view it doesn't benefit whatsoever to devs or consumers.
I only hope that PS and Xbox and maybe even Nintendo can take the hit when/if it crashes and move on.

 

[icespide]

This is an inevitable experiment with how succesful the smartphone market is, personally i hope that this model crashes and burn in the console market, because in my view it doesn't benefit whatsoever to devs or consumers.
I only hope that PS and Xbox and maybe even Nintendo can take the hit when/if it crashes and move on.

how is better looking games not a benefit to consumers? choices are good right?

 

[NoctisVsStar]

This is an inevitable experiment with how succesful the smartphone market is, personally i hope that this model crashes and burn in the console market, because in my view it doesn't benefit whatsoever to devs or consumers.
I only hope that PS and Xbox and maybe even Nintendo can take the hit when/if it crashes and move on.

Heh what if they crash and never recover?

It's just an option for those who want to spend more.

 

[DeepEnigma]

how is better looking games not a benefit to consumers? choices are good right?

Only when ones are able to participate I suppose.

 

[BeforeU]

This is an inevitable experiment with how succesful the smartphone market is, personally i hope that this model crashes and burn in the console market, because in my view it doesn't benefit whatsoever to devs or consumers.
I only hope that PS and Xbox and maybe even Nintendo can take the hit when/if it crashes and move on.

the fuck

 

[The God]

Heh what if they crash and never recover?

It's just an option for those who want to spend more.

What if?

 

[R10Neymarfan]

You can already do that now, and I can't play games like Uncharted and Horizon (etcetera) on a PC, so I don't know what the point of that would be.

In terms of Microsoft Xbox and PC will be one so I don't worry much about the exclusives on that side.

But if you're referring to Sony would it be wise to pay a $100-200 premium for weaker hardware just for about a few exclusives that will or will not be relevant? Not to mention the fact that in the next 5-10 years I might have the capability to play said exclusives on my machine later on via emulation, but that's not the relevant discussion.

It's not worth the price they are asking. Maybe if they subsidized it in some way through a trade-in program or subscription of sorts.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Welp, we reached fully over the edge. Now the console crash rhetoric has played it's hand.

 

[Renekton]

how is better looking games not a benefit to consumers? choices are good right?

I think people are not used to stratification on console gaming, that the Neo version may be the "best intended" experience.

It used to be less complicated, ie Naughty Doge putting 100% effort on vanilla PS4 version so you rest easy know you got the best out of them.

(Im a PC gamer so IDGAF)

 

[AmyS]

Future announcements permitting, I hope we can have a thread dedicated to older PS4 games that get patched / updated to take advantage of Neo hardware.

 

[Reluctant-Hero]

Damn it, this news bums me out. I was stoked to buy a more powerful PS4 that will better accommodate PSVR and provide 1080p/60 for all games (Uncharted 4, Witcher 3, etc).

 

[Keihart]

how is better looking games not a benefit to consumers? choices are good right?

Because it really doesn't mean better looking games for everyone, it means that probably, as anecdote proves, that we'll start to see worse ports to entice upgrades. Just like perfectly capable smartphones get the short end of the stick with OS updates or how some games are bad optimized on the lesser platform when we deal with crossgen.

This model could also make this gen longer or eliminate them. Having no more gens basically means buying overpriced hardware with a focus on selling you specs instead of performance.

The pros are very few, but if you are the kind of consumer to upgrade your phone and PC every year, then this is probably right down you alley. I would make a bet that most console users don fall in this category, just talking out of my ass and common sense here.

 

[teiresias]

I don't understand the logic myself.

PC versions of the same games are superior, but they don't care because they don't game there?

Well you won't be gaming "there" on Neo either, so why...

You know what, if I understand it, then I turn into them. I just can't...

As someone that games on both PC and consoles I always liked my consoles for the console exclusives knowing (disregarding future HD remasters or something) I was seeing it exactly as the developer intended, or at least everyone was playing the game with the compromises the developer decided was best for the platform.

There's just something about that "standardization" that I like from the console arena that you don't get when playing endlessly with settings and tweaking on a PC game (or god forbid a moddable game like an Elder Scrolls that you can putz around with longer than playing the game), and in the back of my mind I'm always thinking, "Would the developer recommend turning this off to get a better framerate or not?"

I'm not one of those people in despair at this move though. I just think it's a bit annoying and I'm not quite sure the market will react as favorably to it as the console manufacturers think they will.

 

[bzzt]

Even if the mid gen upgrades don't exist, won't the OG consoles still get poor performance games in a year or 2 anyway? I would imagine that's normal, but I mostly played the PS3/PC last gen so the performance difference was more than noticeable(considering the PS3 ports seemed like an afterthought).