So it seems that Microsoft will be moving to incremental upgrades for the Xbox One's processor on a yearly basis. The incremental upgrades of the Xbox will be backwards compatible as well.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1192339

I have no idea what to think about this.

Supposedly Nintendo is going to be going this way as well with the NX.

What are your guys thoughts?

Modular was the way to go.

It seems SONY is not going to go this way with the PlayStation 4 (PS4).

Do you think SONY eventually will?

Probably... Everyone is just copying the Nintendo 64 with the $50 4mb expansion pak

Sony was talking about it late last year, but made no official announcement or plans about it. I would think its in the works, but who knows.


I just wonder if upgrading a console piece would split the player base or if they can keep them together. That's the big question. The only reason why splitting the player base in the past has worked because of the 6-7 years between console generations and the attractiveness of a one time hardware purchase per generation.

Yeah, modular/upgradable consoles seems to defeat one of the entire central premises of consoles - a set & unified hardware base.

Yes and if that is the case it is just better to buy a PC or build one.

All that stuff are things people were complaining about almost ten years ago now.


If people are getting fed up and fast, then fast is taking a long time.

No.

I was around back then.

"Oblivion"'s dlc was actually good value for money (well not "Horse Armour" but "Shivering Isles").

"Gears Of War" did not have a Season Pass.

"Zelda: Twilight Princess" was sold as a complete game rather than an introductory pack with "Zelda" and the option to pay extra for "The Twilight Princess" downloadable character at a later date.

Voting with your wallet works.

When the micro-trancactions in "Dead Space 3" failed to ape EA's mobile profits they shut the Montreal based studio that made it down.

Eh.

http://kotaku.com/oh-so-people-do-want-to-pay-for-microtransactions-in-1762489362

Apparently not.

(And I can't tell you the number of f2p mobile games I've tried - without spending money on them - and then seen on the forums dozens of people talking about how they've dropped $100 that month/$1000 total/etc, on moronic purchases. Someone did a poll the other month on the f2p Star Trek MMO forum, checking how much people have spent - 40 people said "$1-5k", with another 28 at "500-1000". And plenty more between 100-500. For every person out there bemoaning how terrible the industry is, there's a dozen others happily participating.)

...personally, I've never been on board the "omg, so expensive" bandwagon. $60 retail seems normal to me, just like $50 did for the decade previous (inflation happens). And I don't see how $60 of FO4 DLC (with plenty of well-announced chances to get the pass for $30 instead of $50) is that much different than $50 of DLC for FO3. Or buying a game back in the day for $40-50 and then getting it's expansion pack for 10 less - hey, that's almost doubling the price of the game, too! Clearly, we should have rioted back then as well.

Are some DLC a poor purchase? Sure. And so were some expansion packs. Does mean they all are, or that DLC are automatically the devil.

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Anyway, this is off topic from the idea of making upgradable consoles. Which still seems like a mistake.

I'm confused on the benefits of this actually. One of the strengths for consoles is that every gen, you get a brand new upgrade to the previous gen that's comparable to a decent PC. Incremental upgrades from the software end isn't going to improve performance that much. Obviously, they're not going to swap out their processor for a Skylake. I don't even know you could make that work. Send your Xbox in for a new improved one? Seems like a waste.

The whole Xbox has been a big let down this gen. I'm sticking with the PS4 and my PC. I get the best of everything plus my Mac.

wonder if it'll be like the Sega 32X. that actually had some promise until Sega abandoned it for the Saturn.

The draw of a console is a simple "set it and forget it" one time buy that allows me to play new games until the next gen. If they're trying to touch upon the PC way of upgrading to play then why wouldn't I just buy a PC? PC is arguably better, the games are cheaper (Steam sales and such) and you can shop for the parts you want, not official "Xbox" parts (which I assume will be the case later on).

One of the reasons I love my console is because I don't have to try to figure out which new game will run on it. If it's made for my console, then the game will work out of the box. If that's no longer going to happen, then what's the advantage of a console again?

Might as well just buy a PC instead if you have to worry about console upgrades.

Consoles will still be locked software-wise, and it's software that causes majority of PCs issues.

Also, it's not like you can stick any random processor in there, the specs will still be as known, there just are more than one. And i'd imagine vast majority games will still be developed for the basic model, with possible extras that can be enabled on "upgraded" systems.

If i used consoles, i might have to switch to Microsoft