Noonan

Launch day buyer here for PS4. I upgraded to a Pro specifically for Monster Hunter, when it came out.

mattysemo247

I was also launch day w/ PS4, and I picked up a Pro about a month after it came out.

dsa_shea

With games likes Borderlands 3 you can see where a newer, more powerful console is necessary. I also look forward to the diminished load times. Nothing like spending 3-5 minutes loading through screens to get into a game from startup.

Michael Corvin

I've been working through Shadow of the Tomb Raider and load times are fucking atrocious. Hopefully the next gen load times are as good as they sound.

tanman

IMHO with each subsequent console generation comes more diminishing returns. The jump from the NES/Sega Master System to the Super Nintendo/Genesis was big. Then the biggest leap of all to the N64/PS1 era. Yeah there will be improvements but this next leap seems to be more of a small step. SSD as a major feature?, 4x's the processing speed?, haptic triggers? Really is that it? Especially since the price will likely be $500. The switch is plenty of gaming for me. I wouldn't have gotten an XBox One if it wasn't for Amazon's BOGO deal a few years back. These new console generations go by so quickly.

Michael Corvin

Console generations have been getting longer, not shorter.

1985 - NES/Sega
1990 - SNES (Genesis: 1989)
1995 - PS1 (N64: 1996)
2000 - PS2/Xbox
2005 - Xbox 360 (PS3: 2006)
2013 - PS4/XBO
2020 - PS5

It was always roughly 5 year console cycles until the 360 & PS3. Nintendo is pretty consistent with 4-5 years regardless of what everyone else is doing.

I guess it depends on what you're looking at. From a purely graphical standpoint, then sure it's always going to be incremental. I'd put the leap from Xbox/PS2 to 360/PS3 right up there with N64/PS1 if not larger. With HD gaming, the explosion of online multiplayer and digital gaming, voice chat, et al, it's part of the reason why that generation lasted far longer than any other.

Xbox 360/PS3 to XBO/PS4 was incremental on all fronts. Better graphics and slightly better tech, bringing nothing really new/lasting to the table (Kinect! VR!).

I'm not sure what to expect from this coming generation.

Adam Tyner

I was there with you! This gen, I was day one on the Xbox One, Xbox One X, PS4, and Switch. I was just late enough on the Xbox One S to miss out on the free Kinect adapter (and I only bought the S because the optical drive in my launch XB1 had died). I was a year late on the PS4 Pro (which I wound up getting basically for free, after trading in my launch PS4 and post-new-house-appliance-purchases certs from Best Buy). Not that I'm not proud of this, mind you.

tanman

I fully admit it's my perception of time that's going by much faster and that's more of what I meant.

There really wasn't a big difference between the last generation and this generation. But at least they tried. Kinect fell on it's face but PS VR has been pretty successful. I just think they'll have to come up with something more than another incremental graphical improvement to get people to buy in to this next generation. Especially since there are increasingly more different types of entertainment that they have to compete with.

Michael Corvin

That's always a perception, but in reality the consoles sell themselves because current gen eventually loses support. The only way to play the latest games is always on the new consoles. Barring a complete collapse by both Sony & MS, people will always migrate to the new systems because that's the only place to play Madden, CoD, etc.

tanman

You're right. Which kind of sucks because that's a terrible reason to upgrade.