If PS4/Xbone had the power that the 360 had in 2005...

Again having the first marketed Unified Shader Architecture does not mean that it was "better" During 2005 into late 2006 7800 series whopped on the 360 because game engines were still not heavily shader based.

MS went to ATI to get their latest prototype chip they were working on and had them come up with a design based on it. And MS payed quite abit for it too, the 360 cost MS nearly a billion in R&D and production costs.

Actually going by history Nvidia has never given consoles prototype gpus, they have always given them chips that were on the market. ie NV2A chip in the 1st Xbox which was Geforce 3, and the RSX which was G70 aka 7800 geforce gpu.

Since the X1 released in late 2013 its design was finished at least 5-6 months prior more then likely Q1 of 2013, So no X1 couldn't have had Maxwell based gpu because it wasn't until late 2013 when the 1st gen Maxwell gpu was finished and was released in early 2014 then it's not a power house ie gtx 750ti. The bigger Maxwell's wouldn't have not been available for use since their design wasn't finished until 2014

Now it would have been nice to see both the X1 and PS4 come with stronger cpu's and gpu's but they have to make money not lose it.

And it is sad state to see the console gaming in...

$500 2006 PCs couldnt touch the 360

$500 2014 PCs own the Xbone hard

All that will lead to much smaller gen... 2017 the new xbox will launch

The gen it just started, there is no way it will end in two years. And it probably be the last gen as the war is approaching.

The consoles were both sold for a loss back in 2005 and 2006. The PS4 and Xbox One were sold for a minimal loss if any at all. Sony and Microsoft wanted to make money out of the gate this gen so they both went cheaper on the hardware as well as have subscription service for their online networks. Basically they picked a hardware spec that was "good enough" for a noticeable increase over last gen yet was still sustainable for large scale production and would be able to be produced for the next few years without incurring extra costs keeping proprietary chip manufacturing lines going.

The PS4 and Xbox One were also built smarter in terms of heat exhaust. Lower clock speeds to keep the heat down and increase longevity of the consoles. Many lessons were learned from last generation.

Also you need to take account some inflation so your $399 went a bit further in 2005.

High end PC hardware just got a major kick in the ass price/performance wise too with the GTX 970, so things are even more skewed now than they were when the consoles launched in 2013.

So if we want to apply similar principles and philosophy applied in the R&D of the PS3 and 360 to the PS4 and Xbox One, then you're looking at some crazy proprietary tech with a Nvidia/AMD supplied GPU probably costing roughly $700-800 to manufacture and selling for $499. The specs would probably be comparable to a bit higher than a "mid range" ($900-1000) PC in 2013.

So I think console sales would be lower and slower as well as Microsoft and Sony posting some decent sized loses after the first year. Price really helped the PS4 gain so much traction. Most console gamers don't give a shit about resolution and framerate. All you need to do is sell them something noticeably better than what they had. That's exactly what the PS4 and Xbox One did.