The PS4 Pro is now real, and the Xbox One Scorpio is coming up next year- incrementally upgraded iterative consoles, then, are now a thing. The notion has long existed in gaming arcades, PCs, and handheld devices, but for home consoles, this is a brave new frontier- one that will end up being good for the industry, according to EA CFO Blake Jorgensen (via DualShockers).
The kind of cross compatibility across different devices in the same family will be great, according to him. “I think that bodes really well for both the hardware side of the business and the software side of the business. The consumer gets more powerful devices faster, but they don’t have to worry about their software.”
This, he noted, would mean that developers and publishers would be able to manage and handle cross generational transitions better, so that the kind of development pains leading to poorer and fewer games at the start of each generation that are so common now, will become a thing of the past.
I, of course, agree with him- I have been arguing for something like this for very long time, now. I just hope that Sony and Microsoft handle these systems well enough that the concept takes off.