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Sony To Debut Two New PlayStation 4 Consoles Next Month, Says WSJ (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Sony could be about to announce two new PlayStation 4 consoles, according to the Wall Street Journal. Both units are set to be introduced next month, people familiar with the matter told the newspaper. The upgraded console outlined by the company earlier this year, capable of outputting 4K-resolution graphics, could be joined by a slimmed-down, cheaper version of the console. That would give gamers options to suit their varying budgets and demands. Sony is set to hold a press conference at the PlayStation Theater in New York on September 7 where the company is expected to outline the consoles in further detail.
I don't get this changes with Microsoft than Sony.
They key advantage of Consoles isn't their power and performance but the fact that they are a common setup for the entire platform. Having different models with different features, will degrade this advantage and will end up with the same problem that we get with PCs. Games not optimized for the platforms, where they will not support the features that want to use, or will perform at a level that will cause a disadvantage to the other lesser box.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Nobody remembers it because it didn't happen. Some observers thought it odd to announce a console that won't ship for another year at the same time a new revision of the original was announced, but that doesn't amount to mocking. We don't yet know what the ship schedule will be for Sony's offerings.
The slim version makes sense. As the platform matures, get out a barebones system at a lower price point. Console manufacturers have been doing this for a while now. I had the PS1 slim and the second gen PS3. If the PS4 slim hits the right price point I'll finally jump into PS4 land. The 4k version is a little more iffy. Now developers have two configurations they have to consider.
*sputter* Games that actually boot at launch? When was the last time you had a console? That's so last-gen. Or before-last-gen, even.
Today it's more like buying a new game and slipping it in. Waiting for the console to boot up. Finally realizing that hey, there is actually a medium in the reader but no, you get a selection screen. Because when you slip a medium in, it doesn't mean that you want to play the game, you could still be absolutely interested in our latest crap that we wanna hype! So you navigate to the "play the fucking game" option. Lucky you, btw, if you have a controller that doesn't require you to enter the 8 ballet positions to do so.
Then the game finds out that, hey, your system is too old for this game, you have to install an update! And since you're online, let's get that update from the server instead of the game medium because, you know, it could be more up to date! Wait for the download while we entertain you with more ads for more crap you don't give a shit about! Oh, and then, please reboot the system.
Waiting for the console to boot up. Finally realizing that hey, there is actually a medium in the reader... ...enter the 8 ballet positions to do so.
Game starts. Awesome! Erh... no, doesn't, because it's found out that there is a patch actually for it, let's download it, shall we? That was not really a question, dummy, that's more like when your boss "suggests" you should do something, just sit there, look pretty and watch some recommendations from our store! Oh, and of course, then it's again reboot time!
Waiting for the console ...
And then it's finally ... time to get some sleep, it's past midnight. But you might be able to play tomorrow!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I think OP meant' "console exclusives" as in "Sony" or "Microsoft", not games that lack a PC port.
And despite the PC being vastly larger, there are many sound reasons why devs may not want to support the PC - piracy being pretty much the biggest reason. The piracy rate being so much higher on PC (from virtually nil on console to over 90% on PC) means that the market has to be just that much larger to even consider making money on PC. Then there's all the support - graphics drivers especially often need tweaking for games. On a console, the manufacturer usually helps you out there (Sony and Microsoft generally are pretty good with it, Nintendo... not so much). But on PC you have to work with both NVidia and AMD (or risk your game doing strange things on the other card). Then there's all the strange display combinations - a console can be reasonably expected to work on a 16:9 screen (1080p most typically). PCs can be 16:9, 21:9, super duper widescreen with 3x 1080p horizontally, etc. And PC gamers expect you to support that with FOV adjustability And any textures that you may have reduced the size of because well, you won't see it at 1080p, you know PC people with quadruple 8K monitors will complain about fuzzy textures.
There's a good chance the PC port won't make much money - between piracy, support and extra dev time, etc. which is why most PC ports are cheap and crap - the business case makes it hard.