Upgradable Consoles
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One.5
PS4.5
N3ds
PC
Mucho chat straddling muchos threads.
Overall - good thing or bad thing?
Key seems to be whether it gives better games (resolution, VR) or different games (less acceptable IMO).
But what do you think...? -
PC is now a console? -
It's absolutely fine as long as all games run on the base spec. If we start getting a selection of .5 exclusive titles then I can absolutely understand the ire of those who haven't upgraded.Get schwifty. -
Depends on the approach really and we need to know more. A modular console where I could choose to buy a new graphics card and slot it in would be cool... But I think they'll approach it similar to mobile phones.
New model every September, games will work for two-year three year old models, then you'll have to upgrade. I.e. In four years time a new game may not run on your console very well, if at all, and you'll have to upgrade.
I can see the positives and I'd be happy to do it, but depends on backwards compatibility and so on I think.I'm falling apart to songs about hips and hearts... -
What Matty said.iosGameCentre:T3hDaddy;
XBL: MistaTeaTime -
MattyJ wrote:Depends on the approach really and we need to know more. A modular console where I could choose to buy a new graphics card and slot it in would be cool... But I think they'll approach it similar to mobile phones. New model every September, games will work for two-year three year old models, then you'll have to upgrade. I.e. In four years time a new game may not run on your console very well, if at all, and you'll have to upgrade. I can see the positives and I'd be happy to do it, but depends on backwards compatibility and so on I think.
I can't really see this happening. Perhaps an upgraded spec once every three years. Extra graphical bells and whistles in your games if you shell out of the newer system, but all games work on the base console. Generation lasts for nine years with just two upgrades.Get schwifty. -
The strength of the consoles is the unity of the hardware. As much as I love the N3DS because the screens are sharper and the 3D actually works, I think having games that run only on the new model is a terrible idea.
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Not that I have any idea about the actual factual implications and implementation of what they're possibly planning on doing.
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I doubt it's be as frequent as phones, that would piss people off. Two years from now though wouldn't be bad, then another two years and if your current machine stops running some new releases it would be hard to complain.
It makes sense from the point of view of the console manufacturers - cut back on expensive R&D and completely retooling factories. It could all get a bit stagnant though, we're already in a gen that's not a huge leap forward from the last, this could perpetuate that. -
May as well just get a PC tbh. After the first investment its pretty much gonna be a similar price to upgrade. -
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Send messageAlso it makes optimisation more time consuming, so dev costs will go up, or creative time will be reduced in other areas to maintain budgets.
So boourns says I.
Is this just a reaction to the ever increasing pace of development and dropping price of pc components? Are consoles starting to date even more quickly than they used to?"Let me tell you, when yung Rouj had his Senna and Mansell Scalextric, Frank was the goddamn Professor X of F1." -
Probably more to do with Smartphones taking the very casual audience from consoles, there'll never be the profits in consoles that were possible with the Wii or the tail end of the PS2. Spending a fortune developing a console doesn't have the potential pay off any more.
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Consoles are going the PC route anyway, they already have half this shit stuff you have to put up with on PC without having the benefits.
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Personally I would need to know more details before saying this is a good or a bad thing.
It could be two-three year upgrade which requires an expensive investment in hardware. Which would suck.
On the other it could be a way of transitioning between console generations more smoothly and increasing the catalogue of games available. Which is a good thing.
Comparing it to phones is a bit off really.
I know people who still use an iPhone 4 perfectly fine and they are 6 years old now. Yes some apps won't work, but most still do.
Also the times people upgrade their phone hardware is directly linked to contract lengths, something games consoles don't have. It is a market run in a totally different way.
Also I don't see what adding hardware options would be that difficult for Devs. It would only be adding one or two more versions of any component. Most PC games are fine with a huge range of different hardware. -
I don't think this is a good idea at all. Devs already seem to fuck up at least one version of big multi platform releases, adding another couple of specs to that doesn't seem very sensible. It's hard to see what the benefits could be. It really just screams of milking more money from the user base. And letting them get away with cheaper and cheaper builds, knowing they'll be able to replace them. It could all be fine of course but nothing about Sony and Microsoft's history and way of doing business suggests that, in the balance of consumer benefits versus company profits, this is going to come down in the right side of that.
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The phone model would only work if there's some kind of contract subsiding the hardware. I don't expect to spend £3-400 every year on a console, but I do that on my phone because I'm getting the phone and the call plan.
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It all comes down to the price of the upgrade really. £50-100 every few years to get shinier shinies doesn't seem that terrible, much more than £150 and you're getting too close to new console territory.
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@monkey
Developing for multiple platforms is much more complex than throwing in some extra hardware options.
If I put some extra ram in my PC my games don't suddenly shit a brick they just utilise what is there. GPUs can cause issues but generally this is because the developer has tested on nvidia rather than AMD so AMD GPUs will have problems. If the hardware upgrades have the same architecture but are just more powerful then it should require minimal work, just driver optimization. -
No
Categorically no, the market won't stand varying levels of "toy". Despite the sales figures of consoles there are still a lot of children and Fifa/CoD players out there. If the game says NES/Mega Drive/PlayStation2 on it I expect it to work on that console
If I want to join an arms race of floating point calculations, polygon counts and frame rate I'd buy a gwaffix card and start taking about PCI, SATA, AGP, SRAM and all that shit
Just realised those acronyms may well betray my lack of knowledge about PCs as gaming tools"I spent years thinking Yorke was legit Downs-ish disabled and could only achieve lucidity through song" - Mr B -
More than happy to upgrade every 3 years, as long as there's valid reason, not just slightly shinier. Works perfectly with iPhones as there's a massive market for older models, that's why I upgrade pointlessly every year. If the 2/3 year old console maintains a decent value then great.
4K,VR, that kind of thing then yes. Slightly more shiny then no. -
I'm only here because I stalk your posts, look how that's now worked out for me- rancid shit!"Better than a tech demo. But mostly a tech demo for now. Exactly what we expected, crashes less and less. No multiplayer."
- BnB NMS review, PS4, PC -
"Our console division is doing pretty good. How can we squeeze more money out of it? Can we jack the price of the console up?"
"Not really. We're pretty much at the limit of what people will pay and we couldn't do that for another four years or so anyway."
"Alright we'll bring the component costs down, they won't last as long so we'll refresh them at shorter intervals and market each cycle with features we purposefully held back from the last one. Someone come up with some shitty reasons to force upgrades on the user base. Whatever the market will stand. Timed exclusives on the newer consoles, extra DLC and bonus content, all that stuff, you know the drill."
Raises glass
"Gentlemen, to evil." -
Actually, 4K's an interesting one. Neither current console can push out a 4K picture, but 4K TVs are starting to become much more common. If you've bought a 4K TV and you can buy a box that will give you 4K console graphics, I can see many people buying that in preference to waiting 7 or 8 years for PS5/XBoo. That little push may be enough to get people willing to buy upgrade boxes.
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Yossarian wrote:Actually, 4K's an interesting one. Neither current console can push out a 4K picture, but 4K TVs are starting to become much more common. If you've bought a 4K TV and you can buy a box that will give you 4K console graphics, I can see many people buying that in preference to waiting 7 or 8 years for PS5/XBoo. That little push may be enough to get people willing to buy upgrade boxes.
A moderate increase in the console spec isn't going to deliver 4K graphics. I'm would assume that's going to require a generational leap.Get schwifty. -
Lol, but neither console is managing to pump out a solid 1080p yet, so there's no chance an upgrade will get them to 4times that res. maybe PS4S will do a solid 1080p 60 on some, but you still need a pretty kickass PC to get a solid 4k.
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It could just be an upgraded console badged PS5 sold at the natural end of this generation, whenever that is.
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Presumably on a PC bought in the past couple of years you just chuck in a big fuck-off graphics card for 4K, rather than having to replace your whole setup, no? And that tech will get cheaper? It doesn't sound that outlandish on the surface of it, but I may be missing something of course.
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