With PS4 Neo and Xbox Scorpio rumored to come out barely two years after their predecessors, I’m wondering exactly what Sony and Microsoft think they’re doing (though neither company has officially announced any details yet, the leaks are hard to ignore). Who do they plan on selling them to? Most gamers won’t bother because a) we’re not made of money, and b) there’s not much point. Frankly put, the PS4 Neo isn’t that much different. When the news first came of it, I thought that Neo would be for those that can or want to run 4K on their gaming system. However, I feel if that were the case, there would be a lot more technical goodies attached to Neo. But there aren’t; it just runs slightly faster and has a better graphics card. Granted, if you were just about to consider rigging your PC to run 4K, getting a PS4 Neo would be the more cost effective method. Still, I really don’t think there are enough people in the world on the cusp of such a decision to justify Sony manufacturing the PS4 Neo in the first place.
Perhaps this is an attempt to catch up with PC gamers? Perhaps Sony and Microsoft are throwing all the tech you would normally have in a gaming PC into a console and updating it accordingly. But how can that really compete when updating your PC graphics card costs less than $300, not $500? It’s definitely much easier to update parts of a system than to update the entire thing. The rumored VR capabilities are something they should have put into the PS4 in the first place. That might very well be the reasoning behind all of this, as a VR-ready enthusiast card hovers around $300 at the low end, and a console would be much easier to deal with than rigging VR to a PC system.
What is more likely is that Sony and Microsoft might attempt to walk the same road as Nintendo. They might start making consoles at the same rate and maybe with similar gameplay innovations . Unless the VR coupled with the PS4 Neo turns out to be a lot more accessible to consumers, I can see this going up in flames, too. Never mind that the Xbox One Scorpio has no such rumored compabibility with VR as of yet. Even if it did, I can’t see consumers going for either console when they already own the PS4 and/or the Xbox One. In time, yes, but not so soon. We’re suckers for improved tech, but we’re not part of the Apple cult.
I’d also like to expand on the idea that the PS4 Neo and Xbox One Scorpio may mark the dawn of constantly updating consoles. What I means by this is that consoles might begin coming out very often, with very little difference between them, much like smartphones. If this really were to be the case, consoles would have to lower in price quite a bit. That said, I imagine it costs a bit more to make a console than it does to make a smartphone. Not only is lowering the overall price of consoles not going to happen, they definitely won’t be doing it if they have to start pumping out consoles at the same rate Samsung makes cellphones. The idea is just plain too costly and I highly doubt it will be the case.
It has been suggested that Sony and Microsoft offer a trade in deal. If you already own a PS4 or an Xbox One, you can trade it in for the upgraded version. This would make it okay, that’s for sure. Especially since the timing of all of this seems to suggest that there is something fundamentally flawed with the PS4 and Xbox One. Something in the hardware that either company is not willing to admit went wrong.
Nonetheless, I don’t know what Sony and Microsoft are thinking with these new consoles, but I certainly hope they’re expecting a loss in profits. There are only so many collectors out there willing to invest in the PS4 Neo and the Xbox One Scorpio. They can’t update consoles like smartphones and not lose a great deal of their investment. Again, unless there is a huge surprise coming, Neo and Scorpio are not going to work out, whatever they’ve planned.