PieFacE Posted June 10, 2015 VT Supporter Share Posted June 10, 2015 Right, this is a purely hypothetical thread but i'm curious for opinion. My main question is; Why don't console manufactures upgrade console hardware mid-life cycle? Okay, so let me expand on this. This thread is has been inspired by a conversation in another gaming thread related to Microsoft releasing a slimmer Xbox. But yeah, why is it that consoles do not get upgraded hardware? They all get slimmed down, but not upgraded. If you look at the PC gaming world, there's millions of different combinations of hardware and game developers can optimize games for low, medium and high settings. Why can this not exist within the console world? We all know that the Xbox One isn't as powerful as the PS4, so in a hypothetical scenario, if Microsoft released a new Xbox One with a better GPU then surely that could only benefit them. It shouldn't be an issue for game developers to have to develop for both the Xbox One and the Xbox One (two). Both platforms should be able to play against eachother on Xbox Live, but one console would have better graphics than the other, just like PC gaming. I can't really think of any reasons why it couldn't work? The idea of being limited to the current gen hardware for the next 5-8 years is a bit of a shit thought to be honest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 The whole point in a console is that every machine is the same and developers have one standard to code for. Also the hardware business model kinda depends on manufacturing costs coming down over the life cycle of the machine. Basically you should get into PC's if you want to play the hardware upgrade game. You can stay ahead of the consoles already with a mid range PC. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hogso Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 It's been tried in the past and failed pretty spectacularly. Sega's Mega CD and the Nintendo 64DD come to mind, seems manufacturers prefer to focus on a completely new product rather than upgrades. You'd be surprised if Microsoft and Sony aren't already thinking about the 'XBTWO' and 'PS5' for example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted June 11, 2015 VT Supporter Share Posted June 11, 2015 The N64 is the only console I can think of 'successfully' upgrading midcycle, with obvious nods to 'successful'. They released the RAM pack upgrade in it's later years that worked, more or less. Otherwise it's rarely done and never successfully. As said above, the console game is reliant on things not fundamentally changing much, for the manufacturers to make money and for developers to both have an easy level playing field to develop for as well as allowing them easier ways of predicting sales etc (adding in fundamentally different SKUs would split a market and make it difficult to peg userbases etc). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eames Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Didn't Sega make a 32 Bit upgrade for the Mega Drive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junxs Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 I'd feel a bit cheated spending £400 on a console and then if I didn't upgrade - a couple of years down the line my console started getting laggy due to developers making games suited for upgraded machines. Equally I think parents would have a right to be annoyed too if they had to fork out an extra £250 for the latest graphics card for their console mid life cycle. It would also take the gloss of new console launches if your previous console was already better spec than whats about to be released. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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