System Wars: Upgradeable/Iterative Consoles- Yay or Nay?

Absolutely yay, upgraded consoles would increase technological pro-activity and engine development, plus it would make consoles less likely to be a root cause of dumbed down PC versions of games.

Yay if Individual games don't have to be patched to see a performance increase, and old models still run the games.

I don't really see any negatives to it in and of itself but it depends on the implementation.

Thank you for being able to see the larger picture.

Yes, that's the thing: console hardware is static, which maybe made sense in the context of a 1980s and 1990s market, but with the rapid evolution of technology these days, and the increased length of a console generation, having static console hardware no longer makes sense- consoles lose out to PCs for the core enthusiast gamer and to smartphones and tablets for the average casual gamer in that case. The ideal solution is to have a common baseline spec, and then iterate on it continuously.

Nailed it!

Nay.

If we want this, we have PCs.

You don't seem to understand the implication of static consoles holding back technological innovation and as a result holding back the PC, your comment is an oxymoron.

Yay, but only if the older models can still play the newer games. Kinda like Ultra vs "normal" settings on PC.

I think it's good for developers as it smoothens out the cycles a lot. The big gameplay jumps of say going from 2d to 3d will not happen again (well I suppose VR is somewhat in that direction). Since games are incrementally improved it makes a ton of sense for the hardware to be the same.

Okay, people voting no- you're entitled to your opinion, but at least explain why.

But these wouldn't be like PC, they would be like the different models of an iPad, or of 3DS.

That's the way I am thinking (this is basically what Nintendo does with the 3DS and New 3DS).

How is it holding back tech inovation and PC?

It's holding PC back because developers will always make games for the larger audience, which are consoles- and as long as consoles have a fixed baseline spec, developers will be forced to make their games, even when they appear on PC, around the limitations of that fixed baseline spec.

On the other hand, if consoles kept improving, developers could also feasibly adapt newer standards for their game far sooner than in discrete, once every 5-7 year jumps.

Because most technological development and game engines are built around a console's technological budget, very little is designed around PC's these days, we don't see too many Crysis' in this day and age. The longer that budget remains static the lower and lower the frequency of innovation takes place over the course of life for the hardware which as a result reflects on the PC.

Console gamers don't care about innovation nearly as much as pc gamers do, and why should we care? We care about ease of use, and having standard hardware that doesn't require upgrading frequently. Who wants to pay multiple times for console hardware?

But in the case described in the OP, you wouldn't have to purchase multiple versions of the same hardware, any more than an owner of an OG3DS has to buy a New 3DS- all games would run on all hardware, just... at different settings, so to speak.

I say yes to the idea, the only thing I'm iffy about would be the pricing for the upgrades and the jump on hardware is worth the upgrade price.

Why is it so hard to understand that this would be optional for the people no longer content with what their console is capable of, they wouldn't have to wait the 5-8 years for a generation to end, they could upgrade in 3 if they wanted to.

Well, I hate having to bring up the same example multiple times, but I think New 3DS is a good instance to look at here in terms of what the transition would be in terms of difference in hardware spec, games across SKUs, and pricing.

Let's not be naive though, you know some of these devs are going to gimp the shit out of the games for the older models and focus on the newer models, and that's a negative to all this. Look at hyrule warriors on the OG 3ds, that shouldn't have been sold to those users but hey there's more money to make.

Yay provided that the companies can avoid splintering their own userbase. That's easily going to be the biggest hurdle.

EDIT: The "holding us back" thing is still going to be an issue. Developers are still going to be, to one degree or another, tethered to the weakest, shittiest SKU available to them. The newer models might have some nice bells and whistles, but if the devs, MS and Sony don't want to splinter their userbase, that bottom, crap-tier SKU is still going to be an anchor.

That said, I'm still in favor of this. Tech is evolving too quickly for the old models of console generations to be tenable.

First of all I don't trust most companies to implement the optional parts properly, and secondly I'm not sure that it would be good to confuse consumers with too many slightly different products. It seems like the market wants to make things more simple instead of more complicated, so I think less products and simpler options are the way of the future.

Nothing is holding back PC tech, that argument is the dumbest **** I've seen here on SW and you should go find a frying pan and smack yourself with it.

Sure, there will always be some games unoptimized for the base hardware- but that is really no different than how it is in today's market, when products like Skyrim on PS3 or Just Cause 3 on Xbox One are allowed to be sold.

It really is a dumb argument because there's minimum settings on PC and not only that budget and development time are the bigger issues all around at this point.

But it would be no different than having an iPhone 6s and an iPhone 6s Plus, or having a 3DS XL and a New 3DS. They're just different models of the same core platform, they all run the same games- just some (generally the more expensive ones) run the games better.

Yay

Upgrades should only be released every few years. Older consoles should still be able to play all newer games, just at a visual downgrade.

The point is that if all (or most, a critical mass of) users migrate to the newer models in 3 years rather than 6, then developers are not tethered to a spec for as long as they would be with discrete hardware generations.

But the problem will get worse now.

I'm waiting for the new PS4, and will always want the best hardware but it's not good for someone that just wants to buy one console.

That said the positives can outweigh the negatives for sure.

We don't see "Crysis" games anymore, cause they are boring to play, just pretty to look at.

Seriously, that's it? The graphics?

How about gameplay mechanics? Will Mario Maker be any better? Will Rocket League be any better?

Crytec wasted all that tech in Crysis 3 for that gun upgrade menu, yet the upgrades are useless most of the time.

Definitely yay. But only if I can play with graphical setting of games. And older games need patches for this to work too ( changing graphical settings)

Yeah, in general, I think it will be fine. Again, with the 3DS example, we only have one game so far that seems to have had this issue- other N3DS enhanced games are just that, enhanced- where they run fine on the base spec, but run better on the New spec.

Even with VR, we know it doesn't need a discrete new generation, because the current generation of consoles seems to be running VR just fine vis-a-vis PS4 and PSVR.

Well if upgraded visuals are the only difference, then I wouldn't have a problem. I'm betting very poor performance issues will be rampant, and less informed consumers will be screwed over, and let's face it--the game industry is the worst offender when it comes to treating consumers poorly: you can't return physical retail games, you can't try them before you buy them unless there is a demo, and then they often aren't a true representation of the final product. Companies already nickle and dime us for the smallest upgrades and lightest amounts of content, so I can only imagine how they'd try to screw us over with more options to do so.

Depends how it's executed. I just wanna play sum games.

Sorry char, but herms have to get of their high horse for me to believe that.

I'm not saying don't do it, just don't make the current console makers do it.

Get a Steam Box.

In general, all the problems you described already exist- they won't be new to the proposed setup here.

But this is also not an issue, I imagine- consumers who bought a cheaper version of a console can still play their games, just downgraded to the cheaper spec. This is no different than N64 games with the Expansion Pak, or Gameboy games running in Color on the Gameboy Color, and running black and white on the original models, or even, to use more recent examples, Xbox 360 models with HDMI and hard drives running games better than Xbox 360 models without HDMI and hard drives having to play the games straight from the disc over a VGA output.

This kind of differentiation has always existed in the industry- I'm just talking about codifying it.

i voted nay but i am hum/haw about it.

one thing i will say is that having consoles with upgradeable components should be a non runner. like a phone, if you want to upgrade the console then you have to upgrade the entire console (well maybe keep the HDD). allowing end users to mix and match different components on consoles is just asking for trouble.

it does make sense though. the old style of console development (squeezing every single last drop out of the hardware) is coming to an end for economic reasons and, as has been demonstrated twice now, it is perfectly possible to sell gaming consoles at a profit...making upgrades a better proposition. making a console now is also easier since they use more off the shelf parts (which is a good thing).

i would almost have a rolling release model (a new console every year) where a particular version of the xbox (V1) is supported for a minimum of 5 years offically. all first party games and third party games have to be released on the V1 until 5 years after its release. all OS updates too. after that releases are at the publishers discretion on the V1 but the V2 will have a year left and so on. so, essentially, the baseline would raise every year but it wouldnt be so high that only 5 people can play games.

the most important thing is confidence that the thing will be supported. if people find that their xbox V1 is dropped after a year then its a non runner.

i dont see it causing too many problems for developers as they essentially make scalable games anyway and tools are available now to make that whole process easier. so as long as each Vx of the xbox has a defined performance metric (which is why its important that only the whole console can be upgraded) developers should still be able to optimise well enough for each one whithout incurring a huge cost. in theory anyway :P.

the downside is that it makes things more complicated for the end user. games will have system requirements (need to make sure the game with XBOX on it will run on your xbox). people will need to get informed about what each version can do and what the benefits are. will a controller and HDD from a V1 work with a V6 for example?

it also means there is no clean break. developers will have to deal with legacy stuff constantly. every console has issues. a developer usually only has to deal with the issues of 2-3 consoles. now (assuming all 3 go this route) developers would need to deal with the issues of 15 consoles. issues from V1 may be fixed in V2 but V1 is still supported so need to work with it. that's on top of the PC.

so i cant really decide. im old school i have to admit. in my book the gamecube, in terms of philosophy, is the best consoles ever built. robust and powerful (but cost effective and dev friendly) hardware built to do one thing only and do it very well: play games. you buy a console...it gets games for 5 years...you put the disc in (or wait until the download is complete in this day and age) and off you go to play the game. no patches, no bugs, no messin or fussin.

also with the cost of production now would it really be a good idea to offer more powerful consoles? thats the biggest bottleneck in the industry at the moment: the wallet.

God yes. These consoles were outdated and shit out of the gate. It hasn't gotten any better. If they want to compete with PC then they're going to have to completely change how the console market works.

But I'm not even talking about the Master Race nonsense here. It's just a simple fact that in general PC hardware begins to far outstrip console hardware as a generation progresses, or that consoles are a more profitable audience for developers, meaning all multiplats are made around the console spec- something like this would ensure that consoles can keep up with PCs a bit better than they can right now, and PCs benefit by not having to wait for 4-6 years for consoles and developers to catch up to them.

@osan0: Well in this case, an upgraded console comes every two years (as an example)- developers always support the most recent model, as well as the two right before it, meaning that each model has a lifespan of six years, meaning, in turn, that each model lasts as long as a regular generation lasts.

Introducing new technology to consoles is also more feasible in this way, if you assume that the introduction of said new tech is staggered by two years (or one model) always- so, for instance, if autostereoscopic 3D is beginning to take off now, this year's models won't have that capability, but the 2018 models will (at which point it should have gotten cheap enough to incorporate).

I want high quality gaming experiences and the only place you can really get those are on PC. So whatever has to happen, whether it be modifiable or iterative console designs, then let's go.

@charizard1605

I say nay. Reasons I can think of:

Potential for software to be only available on specific versions of the console. This includes OS. For example, to have video game recording, you need a the latest OS version, which is only supported by the top performing versions. This is like when Siri wasn't available on iPhone4's although the OS that Siri was introduced on was.

Games will eventually take that route. This will lead to all sorts of issues when consumers go out and buy a game, unwrap it, and put it in, only for the system to say they need a PS4.5 to play it. Shouldn't happen but it will.

On that note, game pricing might become an issue as well. Suppose that instead of locking you out of the game, certain settings and features were just disabled, allowing you to run the game, but not to its full ability. How would pricing on that go? Think Black Ops 3 on PS3/360. The campaign was missing, but the game was not full price. Will publishers now have to make a version of a game for each console version if such a situation exists? This would work best for digital purchases, not for physical sales.

There's no guarantee that the best console version will deliver a better performance. It just might be that, in many cases, the developer's vision for the game can be executed just fine on the lowest version of the console, which eliminates the point of having the beefier console.

I'm just concerned for every day joes, not us snobby hardcore know it alls who read about every little bit of tech news. I know a lot here look down on them as "stupid casuals" but it's actually we who are the weirdos here, not them, because they're just regular people living their lives while we obsess over silicon and pixels.

Imagine a mother out to buy her son a PS4, he just wants to play Street Fighter VI, but neither of them know they have to have PSVR & camera with a 4.0 usb quality of life thumb sensor with mhaa ethernet data cap technology, so she buys the system and game without that stuff. The kid can't play his game and the store will not let his mother return an opened product. In the future the kid remembers that horrible experience and decides video games are for chumps.

My fear is that this kind of chaos for consoles will drive consumers to just buy PC, or nothing at all, since if they have to take a college course to inform themselves on what to buy, even with console now. Why bother?

Nay.

They can piss off. This is the least justifiable gen so far, it's been nothing but a waste of money, mostly multiplats and expensive games and DLC. Now they want to encourage people to buy a whole new console?

Definitely done with non Nintendo consoles.

How so? The gameplay would have to be designed as a standard to work on the lowest common denominator. Say they release new consoles with the plan on having games able to run on the Xbox One and PS4. That means the Physics, AI, framerate, online, game world... basically all the non graphics and sound elements would have to be the same across platform.

So you'll end up with marginally better graphics, because believe me, if the PS4 and the Xbox One was the best they could come up with during the eight year gap (seventh gen), then after two or three years with a £400 console price limit, there'll be only a marginal difference. It would be like going from a GTX 950 to a GTX 960.

And with game development costs being bigger than ever, somehow the average game developer is going to have the game perform differently on different machines? As it is there's been nothing but laziness demonstrated this gen with ports and remasters at best. The remasters of last gen games don't look much better on current gen consoles, so how are current gen games going to look much different on a .5 version of a current gen platform.

Consoles shouldn't be about hardware. They should be about software and services. You have to go through the tedious procedure of buying an expensive console once in a gen safe in the knowledge that all you have to do is just buy games.

Thanks for the well nuanced and reasoned response!

To tackle your points one by one:

• Generally, the way I envision it, this is not going to happen. So,an upgraded console comes every two years (as an example)- developers always support the most recent model, as well as the two right before it, meaning that each model has a lifespan of six years, meaning, in turn, that each model lasts as long as a regular generation lasts. Now, even in such a scenario, there may be some exclusives (like how Xenoblade is an exclusive to New 3DS, or Majora's Mask needs an Expansion Pak to run)- but largely, all games will run on all hardware as long as said hardware falls within the parameters I described above. (I also think developers themselves will not want to cut out the base spec right away, with the bulk of the audience being on it).
• I don't think pricing is going to be an issue, because this won't be two versions of the game, it will be one version of the game running differently on different hardware. Again, 3DS-New 3DS shows this off with Monster Hunter/Smash Bros./Codename STEAM/Hyrule Warriors. Your question, however, is a pertinent one- what about features? For instance, what if PS4.5 introduces a controller with a screen in it, allowing for native embedded Remote Play- that's a feature that can't be availed on the base PS4 model, right? But on the whole, this is also not a problem- if we assume that the transition is handled like I laid out in my first point above, then developers will not design their games around these features, but just include them for cool bonus additions. Think of it in terms of how Amiibos are handled.
• Sure, a lot of games may just run uniformly across hardware. That is the developer's prerogative, but that should be an argument against those developers, rather than being one against this concept. IMO

@Bigboi500: Because in general, it won't be like that. This was not a problem with Gameboy and Gameboy Color, nor was it a problem with 3DS-N3DS. It won't be a problem now.

Unless the model you own is literally three or four cycles (6-8 years) old, in which case it needs to be replaced anyway (and a standard console generation is 5 years, I may remind you), it will run all games to some degree.

PS4.5 should be fully BC with PS1/PS2/PS3.

Yay, it's about time this happens. Each platform has its core and casual market. So your core will always make the jump with the upgrade while the casual sits with the base model and normal cycle.

Ok, let's say they do make them upgradeable.

What then?

You think all 3 companies can release upgrades on a yearle basis, or are we talking 3rd party parts?

And let's not forget trobleshooting.

And upgrade sometimes ruins something untill an update is out.

And ok, they could be like Ipads or Iphones, Iphones that bend in your pocket.

And you, of all people should know, Mr. P5 fan, out the 30 mill PS4 and 80 mill PS3 owners, how much will P5 sell? 1mill? 4mill?

And that's not even AAA bullshit from Ubisoft or the rest.

No. Simply because it divides your user base and devalues the base unit by frustrating and confusing the consumer. A console should be built for a 5-6yr cycle and then put to pasture. I get what I need from PC now, so I don't worry about that anymore.

If I was to bitch about, or resent, anything it would be Backwards Compatibility. That's more of a empowering feature that unifies a whole brand's appeal under a single flagship, namely the PS3 which was most feature-rich and complete gaming console ever created.