I agree. I can almost get behind the way Sony did the PS4 Pro -- it was a boosted hardware spec that came after some time. But even that created some friction.
Console game developers used to haaaate that about PC, they loved the fact that consoles were single hardware configurations. That all changed during 8th-gen with XB1X and PS4 Pro (and before that, to a lesser extent when Nintendo made the DSi and New 3DS refreshes). Now console devs have to design for different hardware setups too.
Yupz.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA that is a very good point. Although it's impressive what some devs have been able to do to get 8th-gen games running on Switch, like the Doom 2016 port by Panic Button. Not even remotely the way you wanna play the game, but as a programming exercise it is nothing short of astonishing and impressive.
If you look at the ratio of gpu size in S & X, then anything that runs at 4K in X should run comfortably in 1080p in S
Tell that to cdpr with what happened with cp2077.
What's funny is that they focused on PC first for Witcher 2 and 3 (although 3 to a lesser extent, that was after all a shared launch day for all platforms), so I thought they were gonna do it again with CP2077. Apparently not. The PS4 and XB1 versions of CP2077 are also a perfect example of what happens when devs try to focus on last-gen as well as current-gen. Those versions of the game should have never happened.
Thats the logical reasonable explanation... Unless someone explains it really ain't that simple, I would guess they are crying about this because they blow the budget on Hollywood actors, parties and promotional activities, then left overs for the game development, then the leftovers of the leftovers go to quality testing. QA testing money is deeply scrutinized, because you got to scrutinize and cut something somewhere, so management can have a job, hence complaints about two xboxes meaning double QA for 1 gen of console. In reality the series S is probably the more widespread console of the 2, I know its the one always available to purchase, i actually havent seen a series x in the wild.
What I'm saying here is that asset for the "lower" setting is there. Just remove the actual asset for the higher setting, not just removing the menu setting.
No matter how you look at it - it’s still more “work” than supporting one static hardware platform. Just haggling over how much.
Pushing interest in the generation of console out further.
It's not clear to me what exactly defines the length of a generation, but new PlayStation base models have been released at 6- or 7-year intervals going all the way back to the original model, unless the original is given special treatment because of its delayed release outside of Japan.
Co-releasing the Pro with the base model at launch would seem odd, though so would releasing it too close to the next generation (speaking as a consumer, and not as SIE marketing). It seems somewhat questionable to release one at all, for reasons related to the existence of this thread.
I would think that a hardware refresh would appeal to those who don't already own a console. Otherwise, it means dumping several hundred dollars into e-waste unless the buyer has a use for a second console, or is optimistic about the used hardware/console market and sufficiently motivated to deal with it. Then again, consumer behavior is seldom rational.
Not bad data points. I was thinking all the way back to the Atari / NES days, but your 6-7 years may be more in line even in that light