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deanb
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As I said in that post however, take the figures as is. I used my own criteria (prices adjusted for inflation and sticking to the major players) but feel free to calculate your own averages with your own criteria. The 3DO and the Jaguar could be added to the 5th generation and they'd raise the average quite a bit. The NeoGeo and PC-Engine would also raise the average for the 4th generation.

 

Getting back on topic, the point of all this was that the cost of hardware hasn't drastically risen so I don't think Sony or Microsoft will have too much problem releasing next gen systems for around the same cost as the other major consoles have released in the past. They won't be paying consumer prices for their hardware and they won't be transferring all their costs onto the consumer.

 

I think the greatest challenge Sony and Microsoft will face will be keeping temperatures down without having to release monoliths.

 

Agreed on the power and temperature thing.

 

I don't see how you can say that cost wont be a struggle considering how huge of an issue it was with the PS3 and to a lesser extent the Xbox. You see it now currently with the Vita.

 

 

 

There's no denying it that the PS4 will be more expensive than the PS3 today, but I think it will be within the $500 - $600 range again. As for cloud gaming/on demand, I don't think people are ready for that yet. The PS4 games will all be released on the PSN the same day as the store, I'm sure, but it won't be for another generation before we go 100% Digital Distribution (which I'm going to call DD from now on).

 

Yeah, but how are they going to keep it out of the $500 range? Certainly blu-ray drives are cheaper and that will really help. Low to mid range HDD's remain mostly static so that probably wont change. Maybe they won't put in cutting edge graphics and CPUs and that can retain some of the cost down. I personally think they're going to cut out the optical drives and go digital now because it'll save money on the console and they'll make tons of money on the digital sales.

 

Anyway, You can't cram a GTX 580 and a Core i7 into a PS3 for $300 or probably even $400 and even if you tried it'd be huge and have a nice big power brick to go with it.

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There's no denying it that the PS4 will be more expensive than the PS3 today, but I think it will be within the $500 - $600 range again. As for cloud gaming/on demand, I don't think people are ready for that yet. The PS4 games will all be released on the PSN the same day as the store, I'm sure, but it won't be for another generation before we go 100% Digital Distribution (which I'm going to call DD from now on).

 

Yeah, but how are they going to keep it out of the $500 range? Certainly blu-ray drives are cheaper and that will really help. Low to mid range HDD's remain mostly static so that probably wont change. Maybe they won't put in cutting edge graphics and CPUs and that can retain some of the cost down. I personally think they're going to cut out the optical drives and go digital now because it'll save money on the console and they'll make tons of money on the digital sales.

 

Anyway, You can't cram a GTX 580 and a Core i7 into a PS3 for $300 or probably even $400 and even if you tried it'd be huge and have a nice big power brick to go with it.

 

Sony being the corporate giant they are, they will build the console at a loss, just as they did on the PS3. Optical drives are very expensive, but I think, especially now on the verge of DD, they have to be very careful with what they decide to do. People aren't against digital distribution, but if the Xbox comes out with a disc drive and the PS4 doesn't, then Sony lost right then and there. There are people out there who are against DD, and will need more time to adjust to it.

 

As far as the CPU and GPU, I'm sure they won't use the top top end stuff, and knowing how some consoles have worked in the past, they'll work up some sort of deal with the creators of the CPUs and GPUs to make it some what cheaper.

 

Johnny says they probably wont make a whole new architecture, like they did with the PS3, but I think they will have, who ever it is creating the gpu, come in and work a custom built GPU for the system. If the deal is good, they can get some engineers to throw in some custom firm ware if the box of the PS4 says "powered by Nvidia" on the back and that is on the back of every game.

 

Honestly, we better get used to advertisements, because that is also a way to keep down prices. Just look at how many ads are on the Xbox dashboard and the new one coming out in november seems to have more!

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Sorry if I am completely wrong, but it seems most game developers are comfortable with what they got when it comes to AI and the such. ive never heard a developer complain about this console's lack of power when it comes to AI. And as for interactivity? What do you mean by that? What else can we do that cant be done on this generations hardware? How can we even make things more complex that are actually beneficial and noticeable? How is this all going to improve videogames in a significant way? In a 300-400 dollar way?

 

Everything thats wrong with games i blame on the person making them, not the console's lack of power. Maybe Im wrong and they deserve more sympathy.

Many developers are comfortable with what they have in AI because they're aware they can't do much about it atm. Beneficial n heavily noticeable will be the graphics as always. I don't think it'll be much to assume that next-gen will easily hit 720p and 1080p unlike this gen where the HD has sometimes had to take a back seat. 3-D will probably become a standard feature too, built into the console so the devs won't need to do anything if they don't want to. You'll also get all the improved tech like tessellation (Which 360 has a minor degree of), global illumination, better physics (watch the Batman video) etc. Oh water too. Srsly video game water is a pile of shit.

is what you get when you throw in a nice GPU. Whereas atm things like Hydrophobia are considered to have awesome water as far as consoles go.

On the beneficial and not so noticeable side of things more RAM and processing power means you can do more things procedurally. Which means more games like Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress (which despite looking like shit do require a relatively beefy PC). Just the tl;dr for people who don't understand how DF n MC work and why this is impressive the long n skinny is: These are games that build themselves. Think littlebigplanet 3 with more levels that stars in the universe. You can do procedural things now, but at the expense of other elements. It does require a slight mindset shift in "how you build a game". You probably won't see this in the big games, they like a heavily scripted game. But the indies, where you can get by with a ton of programmers and one artist then it's something that's worth doing. Here's a game engine building an entire city, workable buildings too, from scratch.

 

AI wise you can have more, you can have it do interesting things. You can start using Massive as a video game middleware (instead of just in TV & films; see Helms Deep) Have games never felt empty to you? More CPU power(or more cores/more GPGPU even) and more RAM means more AI on the screen.

Main way that improved AI can noticeably improve games? Escort missions. Improved pathfinding, improved combat assessment, etc. Better AI with maybe an improved vocal synthesizer also means you can make more talking NPCs. No more "this is the NPC with a paid celeb voice actor, you will get 'X to talk' on him" and "This is just a model walking about, you can shoot it and that's it". You decide to stand in front of an NPC, it will tell you to move the fuck out it's way. Maybe might even punch you. Currently AI is dumb, really fucking dumb. It's essentially "walk forward along path, if hurt, drop dead". The player does something "unexpected" (and in open-world games pretty much everything is unexpected) it rarely knows how to react.

 

 

Eh, the way I see it, consoles will slowly turn into non-customizable PCs. The PS2 doubled as a DVD player and then the PS3 doubled as a bluray player and so much more. It almost seems natural. Just need people to start seeing consoles as not just gaming machines. Hell, with graphics plateauing it they will have to bump up the other areas like MasterDex said but along the way they will have to add something more.

 

And Strangelove, consoles are lacking in hardware for which they are suffering from now. Its really limiting them. Sure the devs do some pretty damn creative stuff to work with the hardware but they can only do so much. I hope for $300 to (lets face it) $500, we can see at least 1GB of RAM and 1GB of VRAM. Be great if its 2GB of RAM but yeah, not sure how the cost of that will be and I have to work with your 300-400 bucks price range. I would love to compare computer hardware with console hardware prices but that wouldn't be too accurate.

Consoles already are non-customizable PCs. They always have been, it was kind of the point. Instead of buying a computer with the express purpose of gaming you could buy a console at a cheaper price and with much of the same games. They're gaming PC's that don't do anything else. They just happen to be doing more than usual, but so are PC games too.

When comparing PC n console hardware it's wise to remember that consoles can generally offer a guaranteed shipment. They also sell at a loss. Moores law suggests (if 13/14 is the date) that the next gen consoles will have about 8GBs of RAM, so say 6GB of RAM n 2GB of VRAM, which isn't too unreasonable. Mobile phones have 1GB of RAM, I doubt consoles will stick that low. For $600 mass produced consoles made in 2013 it's not a huge leap to assume it'll be around that.

 

The fact that most advanced graphics cards on the computer are pushing 150+ watts and cost $200+ are probably the biggest reasons why the new consoles aren't here yet.

The wattage doesn't matter too much. The PS3 was pretty hefty upon launch, just a case of waiting a few years n making a Slim. TDP is your big issue (case in point: RROD). And they won't be using the absolutely top end. The PS3 had a reworked 7800GT under the hood and launched alongside the 8800 series. Going off the PS3 price breakdowns I'd say Sony look to spend about $100-140 each on CPU n GPU.

 

Yeah, once consoles become a lot more powerful you could theoretically make a game 20 times the size of Morrowind, but no one is going to do that. The more advanced we become the more work it is and all the publishers can do is up the price of games by maybe ten bucks, if at all.

The thing is it actually get's easier. Making a game like FFVII which back then used SGI equipment to make n run? Could knock together similar models in Google Sketchup. Nowadays you have laser scanning, mocap, LIDAR, zbrush, PhysX etc etc. You don't need to model as much, you don't need to spend ages on animation by hand because you can just MOCAP an actor for a few hours instead. Don't painfully model your level, just go out and scan the whole thing in a few minutes.The consoles don't get more n more powerful each generation with the tools for making games just remaining static. Costs of games don't have to go up, and most of that is marketing anyway. I think with stuff like COD it was like $50million making the game(which is high as it is) and something like $200million on advertising.

 

The change will be pretty large between new games and current games. I am willing to bet the difference in performance (not graphics, but just ingame performance) will be equal or maybe even greater than what we saw from last gen to this gen.

It'll roughly be 16 times more improved, especially with the 8yr gap between 7th n 8th compared to the 5 year gap between 6th n 7th.

 

 

Remember most gamers pick up call of duty, FIFA, and Dance Central and that's them set all these technical problems games have and are picked over on the net are just not picked up on at all by most gamers.

FIFA (or maybe one of the other EA sports franchises, maybe basketball) was actually one of the games used to showcase 7th gen back in the day. It was a tech demo on walking. You know how in ye olden days you'd push left and the character would just instantly be facing left/circle on the spot. Whereas now you push to the left and they move their feet about n actually corner to the left. aha here we go:

Srsly we used to put up with that?

And I don't think you'd have something like Dance Central last gen either. Better hardware especially helps with motion gaming. They may not notice it and be able to pick up on the specific tech improvements but the fact the games are "better" is something pretty much anyone can tell.

 

One need only look at Atomontage Engine or other 100% voxel-based middleware solutions to see the huge potential for gameplay advancements, potential that can't be harnessed--not even close--on current hardware.

The Atomontage engine n tech demo was a scammy scam scam. Voxels are handy dandy, but that whole thing was/is a scam. It's looking for investors or someone to buy the engine. It's totally unusable in games.

 

There's every chance that a PS4 will be something akin to an Onlive / Gaikai type device. Which would render all this talk of graphics cards somewhat moot.

Onlive/Gaikai is a service. Sony CE are product manufacturers. I think they will run alongside each other, and there's also the window of maybe having something OnLive-like built into an 8th gen console. But I don't think either MS or Sony will be the ones running it or making a console built around it. Anyway you can't push Blu-Ray if you're streaming your games. And while Onlive is a great cheap solution (£60 and £10 a month for modern games? Not bad), Sony n MS enter with the dedicated solution. There's too many issue at the moment with an all-out streaming device, especially one bearing the PlayStation brand. Maybe test the waters with a PS4go but even then I'm doubtful.

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I don't see how you can say that cost wont be a struggle considering how huge of an issue it was with the PS3 and to a lesser extent the Xbox. You see it now currently with the Vita.

Eh what? The Vita is amazingly priced. iPhone 4S, which has on-par guts, retails for $650 and the Vita will only be $250.

 

 

Yeah, but how are they going to keep it out of the $500 range? Certainly blu-ray drives are cheaper and that will really help. Low to mid range HDD's remain mostly static so that probably wont change. Maybe they won't put in cutting edge graphics and CPUs and that can retain some of the cost down. I personally think they're going to cut out the optical drives and go digital now because it'll save money on the console and they'll make tons of money on the digital sales.

 

Anyway, You can't cram a GTX 580 and a Core i7 into a PS3 for $300 or probably even $400 and even if you tried it'd be huge and have a nice big power brick to go with it.

Blu-Ray is cheaper, Cell Processor R&D is way way way cheaper. All the major costs of the PS3 are abolished. BR player then: £500, BR now? £60. The cost saving of taking out a £40 BR drive will be minimal compared to the costs incurred in massively bulking up your data centres and bandwidth costs. Oh and losing out on the delicious disc royalties. Sony going all digital at this stage makes no sense. The Vita is going to be their first ever console to ha\ve simultaneous physical n digital launches. The PS3 digital library atm sucks, they'd need a transitional generation of having combined simultaneous digital n physical sales before going all digital.

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I don't see how you can say that cost wont be a struggle considering how huge of an issue it was with the PS3 and to a lesser extent the Xbox. You see it now currently with the Vita.

Eh what? The Vita is amazingly priced. iPhone 4S, which has on-par guts, retails for $650 and the Vita will only be $250.

 

Well, iPhones retailing at $650 is kind of hard to call a true price point since it's priced high to pressure you to buy a cellphone contract. Maybe it'd be easier to compare to an iPod Touch which starts at $200 with 8GB of storage built in. Clearly Sony decided to pick $250 as their price point, which is a good one, and they probably cut internal storage and went with memory cards as a way to pretend like they're hitting that price point. The fact is you need a memory card and it's going to cost you as much as $150. To me the cost of a Vita is $350 because I'd want 16GB of storage. It's all about wrangling numbers because the only number people want to compare is the MSRP of the console itself, not the total cost of initial investment to consumers.

 

Also, you're right, Sony's investment in Blu-ray makes it likely that PS4 will still have a disc drive. Microsoft probably will not want to license Blu-ray and will probably go DD.

 

 

This: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/10/21/report-these-are-the-vita-games-that-require-a-memory-card/

Edited by Yantelope
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Well, iPhones retailing at $650 is kind of hard to call a true price point since it's priced high to pressure you to buy a cellphone contract.

That's not true. The cost is actually quite high for smartphones to be manufactured. Unless you have some source on that I'm not aware of?

 

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/02/10/apples_cdma_iphone_4_components_cost_171_16_cheaper_than_gsm_phone.html

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Yantelope that is a source on a phone released well over a year ago being cheap. As we've already established electronics prices go down (especially when you sell tens of millions of them). An unlocked iPhone 4 costs you £270 compared to Apples RRP of £500 on the 4S. Maybe you want a tear down of an iPhone 4S since that's what we're comparing to the Vita?

 

 

It's also worth noting that the Vita isn't technically "unlocked" since it comes with the handy bonus of a subsidy from selling games. It's a contract console, though without a hardwired contract so not as much shaved off the price.

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http://www.businessw...1217_113525.htm

 

cost isn't drastically different from components in the touch. Manufacturing costs should be similar too.

 

4S here:

 

http://www.macrumors...n-at-about-188/

 

Oh, and if you want to compare a Vita to an iPhone then you have to compare the $300 3G model.

Edited by Yantelope
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Oh, and if you want to compare a Vita to an iPhone then you have to compare the $300 3G model.

Why? Unless you're going to find me an iPhone that is priced with a ~5 year mobile subscription built in too.

 

btw your first article is from 4 years ago. It's still worth repeating (for third time now?) that the iPod touch is a crappy version of an iPhone 4, a near 2 year old piece of tech supported by sales in the tens of millions. Even the iPhone 4S, only just launched, still lags behind the Vita in hardware.

 

Also why we now talking Vita? Is it so hard to stay on topic?

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I would quote Yant and his PS4 going for bluray and Xbox3 (calling it that for now) going for DD but its a bitch to quote on my phone.

 

Anyways, going off what someone said, I forget who and its a pain to go back to read on my phone. If Microsoft goes DD for their next console, won't that put them at a disadvantage? A good chuck of folks don't seem ready for a pure DD console. Hell, I may be fine with it on the PC but on consoles... not so much. So I am with those folks. I got to have disks if it remains at $60 (Be nice if it went back to $50) a pop for a brand new game before any discounts*.

 

If Microsoft sees this and are not willing to take the DD gamble, surely they could go the route of licensing one of those other high capacity disk formats? The PS4 for sure will have a an upgraded bluray drive so it can read all those improved bluray disks that will be coming out.

 

With the no physical media problem of DD, among others issues like bandwidth. I don't think DD will be what the Xbox3 mains with. It seems foolish. (These issues can apply to streaming services as well)

Both consoles will/should have an improved capacity for the DD model but they won't go all out on it.

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Oh, and if you want to compare a Vita to an iPhone then you have to compare the $300 3G model.

Why? Unless you're going to find me an iPhone that is priced with a ~5 year mobile subscription built in too.

 

btw your first article is from 4 years ago. It's still worth repeating (for third time now?) that the iPod touch is a crappy version of an iPhone 4, a near 2 year old piece of tech supported by sales in the tens of millions. Even the iPhone 4S, only just launched, still lags behind the Vita in hardware.

 

Also why we now talking Vita? Is it so hard to stay on topic?

 

But the current article from yesterday on the 4GS doesn't matter to you?

 

Brought up Vita to talk about how MSRP's aren't always a great indication of true cost of adoption:

 

It's all about wrangling numbers because the only number people want to compare is the MSRP of the console itself, not the total cost of initial investment to consumers.

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@Malicious: There's no reason for MS to not go with blu-ray next-gen. The whole "blu-ray is made by Sony therefore MS will never use it" that gamers come up with is bollocks to the nth degree (especially when taking into account they have no qualms with DVD)

 

@Yante: I requested the article did I not?

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@Malicious: There's no reason for MS to not go with blu-ray next-gen. The whole "blu-ray is made by Sony therefore MS will never use it" that gamers come up with is bollocks to the nth degree (especially when taking into account they have no qualms with DVD)

 

@Yante: I requested the article did I not?

 

 

4S here:

 

http://www.macrumors...n-at-about-188/

 

Oh, and if you want to compare a Vita to an iPhone then you have to compare the $300 3G model.

 

Sorry, added that bit in so you might not have seen it.

 

"Component costs for Apple's entry-level iPhones have typically come in between $170 and $190, offering the company a hefty margin when the $199 purchase price and extensive carrier subsidies are accounted for."

Edited by Yantelope
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Right, which is why Sony wouldn't be getting much profit off of their Vita but $650 off an iPhone 4GS would be profitable. Profit for Sony comes from a $100 required memory card.

 

Dean, You said:

 

The Vita is amazingly priced. iPhone 4S, which has on-par guts, retails for $650 and the Vita will only be $250.

 

 

No, the Vita is not amazingly priced. The iPhone is overpriced. and to have "on-par guts" you have to compare the 3G version of the Vita which is $300.

Edited by Yantelope
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Profit for Sony comes where it's always come from on non-nintendo consoles: games.

For that matter, the Vita IS amazingly priced. It's launching at a price point comparable to what the 3DS was at launch. The only reason the 3DS is much cheaper now is that they felt that they had to lower the price in response to the Vita.

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Right, which is why Sony wouldn't be getting much profit off of their Vita but $650 off an iPhone 4GS would be profitable. Profit for Sony comes from a $100 required memory card.

 

Dean, You said:

The Vita is amazingly priced. iPhone 4S, which has on-par guts, retails for $650 and the Vita will only be $250.

No, the Vita is not amazingly priced. The iPhone is overpriced. and to have "on-par guts" you have to compare the 3G version of the Vita which is $300.

And I guess you also need to compare the iPhone 4S that comes with rear touchpad, dual analogs, expandable memory. But oh wait their isn't one. The Vita is also launching the same price as the 3DS, of which the guts don't match at all. You're currently the only person to think it's price isn't amazing, especially compared to what's on the market and what the expected price was.

 

Anyway since you're still struggling with my hints here it is in Admin red for that more distinctive tone required:

This is the PS4 thread. Your next post will be about the PS4. Not the Vita, Not the iPhone. The PS4. Want to talk Vita? There's a Vita thread.

Comprende?

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Right, which is why Sony wouldn't be getting much profit off of their Vita but $650 off an iPhone 4GS would be profitable. Profit for Sony comes from a $100 required memory card.

 

Dean, You said:

The Vita is amazingly priced. iPhone 4S, which has on-par guts, retails for $650 and the Vita will only be $250.

No, the Vita is not amazingly priced. The iPhone is overpriced. and to have "on-par guts" you have to compare the 3G version of the Vita which is $300.

And I guess you also need to compare the iPhone 4S that comes with rear touchpad, dual analogs, expandable memory. But oh wait their isn't one. The Vita is also launching the same price as the 3DS, of which the guts don't match at all. You're currently the only person to think it's price isn't amazing, especially compared to what's on the market and what the expected price was.

 

Anyway since you're still struggling with my hints here it is in Admin red for that more distinctive tone required:

This is the PS4 thread. Your next post will be about the PS4. Not the Vita, Not the iPhone. The PS4. Want to talk Vita? There's a Vita thread.

Comprende?

 

:rolleyes:

 

Arguing with you guys is like trying to lead a horse to water. You chase down different roads trying to say I'm wrong and when I respond I'm "off topic".

 

I already pointed back to the part of why I brought up the Vita in the first place but nobody wants to address so many of the issues I bring up. Let me restate them.

 

MSRP is not equal to cost

 

Not all consoles are equal so comparing them strictly by an arbitrary "generation" title is still arbitrary.

 

Cost of graphics are going up.

 

PS4 got delayed probably due to the costs of hardware. Same for Xbox.

 

Anyone want to respond to any of this? No you just want to chase rabbits rather than ever admit you're wrong about anything. Sigh.....

Edited by Yantelope
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:rolleyes:

 

Arguing with you guys is like trying to lead a horse to water. You chase down different roads trying to say I'm wrong and when I respond I'm "off topic".

 

I already pointed back to the part of why I brought up the Vita in the first place but nobody wants to address so many of the issues I bring up. Let me restate them.

 

MSRP is not equal to cost

 

Not all consoles are equal so comparing them strictly by an arbitrary "generation" title is still arbitrary.

 

Cost of graphics are going up.

 

PS4 got delayed probably due to the costs of hardware. Same for Xbox.

 

Anyone want to respond to any of this? No you just want to chase rabbits rather than ever admit you're wrong about anything. Sigh.....

You are off topic though. You've consistently gone off topic several times now. It's annoying as a mod cos it means picking through n reshuffling shit.

 

1. We know MSRP =/=cost. How is that something we could be "wrong" in? We also know from past actions Sony would most likely eat the cost of the hardware and recoup it through software. So while the PS4 could retail for $400+ on launch it'll still have $100+ on top of that in cost.

 

2. The generation designations aren't exactly arbitrary, and what would you suggest otherwise?

 

3. This was resolved with MasterDex's rather lengthy post a couple pages back.

 

4. Who said it's delayed? When has their been any word it has been delayed? It still doesn't have any official dates anyway. Batman on PC is delayed. PS4 is not delayed.

 

There I've responded. I'm unsure how any of these are things we could be "wrong" about. But you know always easy to go with a :

:rolleyes: and drive the discussion off-topic to the point I bring in the red font.

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1&3. But masterdex and every other argument about cost going down have been based on MSRPs so nothing was resolved by MasterDex's post. I've poked about 10 holes in it.

 

2. Saying that a console based on 5 year old hardware and another based on current tech are in the same "generation" because they went on sale at the same time is silly and makes the term "generation" arbitrary.

 

4. PS4 is delayed in the sense that the standard console cycle has been broken for the first time in 5 generations.

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