Rumours are making the rounds that Microsoft is also possibly working on a more powerful Xbox One, like Sony’s PlayStation Neo. I’m not amused, I’m sure most of you aren’t either. Let me explain.
Readers beware, I’m about to get into full on Rant mode. I got a PlayStation 4 console Day One when it launched in South Africa. What a proud owner I was, knowing full well that this beast in my hands would give me many years of gaming pleasure. Then beginning last year, got myself an Xbox One too and all was good in the world. Right up until rumours started making the rounds that Sony has been working on PS4K of sorts. I wrote an article about that some time ago so you know exactly how I feel about it, if you read it. I even went as far as to praise Microsoft for not partaking in this ludicrous venture since Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox, was quoted as saying there won’t be an Xbox 1.5. Now, new rumours and reports have been making the rounds recently about the possibility of a heavily beefed up Xbox One (Scorpio), contrary to what Phil Spencer said and then I pretty much lost it.
The Poor People versions which are about to be worthless too
Gamers are an inherently, passionate bunch. We love this pastime of ours to bits. Console gamers love our consoles and when we make a console purchase, we do it with the expectation that it will be a more or less 7 to 10 year investment. Sure during the generation life cycle, you would get redesigns of the console (making them smaller and UI upgrades) but they are still the same architectural hardware. Which is great, exactly what I signed up for. Until now. Honestly I have never felt so livid about the gaming industry until these rumours hit the web. Granted, it could just be that…rumours and nothing more, in which case I’m frothing at the mouth for nothing. But what if it’s true? What if Sony and Microsoft are changing the console life cycle that we know and love into a more, smart phone like cycle? Xbox One and PS4 are barely 3 years old so they aren’t even midway through their life cycle. So why the need to add a beefed up system when 40 million of us have already invested in their consoles expecting a decade long lifespan? Many will argue that the consoles are trying to keep up with the PC counterparts but I think that’s hot air. The PC platform has always been more powerful through the years. Yet they have existed side by side with consoles for more than 20 years, no problem. Last generation saw some amazing games like The Last of Us running on a console with only 512MB of shared RAM. The game still looks great today. Being a closed platform means we expect that the PC will leave us behind, it always has and it still doesn’t bother us, so why should it bother us now. It has never been about the power, but more about the experiences developers create with the resources they have.
Apparently this is no longer good enough…We need it better with NEO
Some have claimed the advent of VR gaming which requires a lot from the hardware that current gen isn’t providing fully. Fair enough, but then shouldn’t the developers work harder at optimizing the games to work better with the limitations. Surely “More Power” isn’t the answer to everything. Going back to my previous statement, lets look at Halo 4 on Xbox 360, Uncharted 3 on PS3, God Of War III or Ascension, all these games, as stunning as they are, were created with extremely limited hardware from last gen consoles and they were magnificent experiences because of clever development. I don’t find myself looking at Uncharted 4 on my PS4 thinking “Geez I wish the graphics were better than this garbage”. Or Halo 5 on Xbox One thinking “I can’t deal with this terrible visuals”. Now is usually the time in the console life cycle that developers get clever with their programming, coming up with better looking, better playing games. Now is the time that the boundaries of these consoles are starting to be pushed. Not the time for a brand new console hardware. And don’t tell me the new games are going to be compatible with the first gen consoles because how long will it take before too much is compromised on the older console that the game suffers for it. Or developers decide its too much effort to make a title work on PS4 that they only release on PS Neo while the rest of us Day One purchasers, sit by unable to play the latest awesomeness. Worst of all is that these new consoles render the resale value of our current consoles worthless. Get ready to sell your PS4 for R2000 only to fork out another R4700 to get a neo.
Truth is boys and gals, corporate game-topia might think this is a great opportunity to make a ton more money than they already have, and then keep making it with shorter life cycles, you know like the smart phone market which is coining it right now. All they are doing is not only putting a strain on developers who now have even more versions of the same platform to worry about, but a strain on us, the consumers who are going to get fed up with being taken for a ride and constantly getting the short stick. Here’s a better solution, I wouldn’t mind taking say R1000 of my money, give it to a Sony or Microsoft dealer of some sort, they take my console and bring it back with a neo upgrade…Job well done. Beats buying a whole new consoles. An unsophisticated solution which would also work, have the NEO or Scorpio be an external upgrade box which you connect to your current console. I can live with that. I would rather prefer getting a new console in about 2022 when PS5 is supposed to come out.
Rant Over!
Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, please share your thoughts with us about this recent trend, in the comments below.
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