iv yet to know anyone who owns one. Everyone I know is still playing PS4, Switch or Xbox. no interest in buying one until there is a big price drop, they get more games, and the PS4 is basically dead. until then got a backlog of games I barely played yet and probably never will play all of them

it's a waste though. Especially for gaming.
-the gpu requirements go up 4x, and that power would be much better used for other graphical improvements.
-massive diminishing returns. people honestly won't be able to tell the difference. and yes, I realize people said that with 1080p, and then with 4k. However, it's true with 8k.https://www.techhive.com/article/352...ifference.html

8k is and will be a marketing gimmik.

yea it's possible. If so, I think every 4 years makes sense, but not more frequently than that.

Agreed on 8k's gimmickry because the other significant factor is the mammoth amount of additionaldatait will take for both downloads and streaming.

With data caps being a harsh reality for man people here in the US, 4k streaming can easily eat through data as it is, and 8k is just asking for overage charges or forking out for the extortion tier. Throw in a few full game downloads or content heavy and/or frequent updates, and the whole premise falls off a cliff.

Just imagine an 8k Call of Duty update -boominstant overage.

Plus, that is going to chip away at the relatively small allotment of available storage on the consoles when we're talking 8k title sizes.

As for movies, who has time for any of that sh*t but people with more money than sense? Sometimestoogood of a picture only draws attention to CGI or more pores than what a dermatologist sees.It might take a bit though because now it's not the customer's who are the hold up, but the entire supply side that needs to catch up.

Any other time, more frequent refreshes would likely be on the table, but the semiconductor industry is so strapped that even cell phone makers are shuffling their feet over their usual annual updates, e.g. the2021 Samsung Note.

Another factor that might slow down Sony and MS from putting out a refresh too early is making back the costs on the current slate of systems. Game delays aren't helping, but the big thing I'm surprised that they still haven't addressed is the amount of hardware scalping that is realistically going to translate to less money those buyers will have to spend on more games, peripherals, and subscriptions.

These are already loss leader products, but unlike in the past where manufacturing costs would reliably decrease over time, we're again at a point where production is SOL and costs might not lower enough to get too loose with new tiers.

Sadly, I think the first new things we'll see are simply revised skus that have more storage capacity and that's it, but nothing too dramatic in the foreseeable future.

Not really a demand.

The scalping and unavailability is due to the pandemic.

really good points. I didn't even consider the storage requirements.

I think a 3 year refresh is too soon, at least a 4 year gap is decent imo. Give the consoles time to breathe and flex ... At least this gen we've gotten pretty beefy machines that can more than hold their own unlike last gen. Also they need to make the refresh meaningful, not some half assed PS4 Pro job. That way at least we can get an 8 year cycle which is fine by me, after the first 4 yrs drop a refresh, and then that system can carry on the next 4 years with good settings while the previous sku obviously will have to make a couple sacrifices in terms of framerate/visuals.

Like you said though, I reckon we're gonna see a refresh in 2024 given how the pandemic has disrupted supply and caused game delays. We're probably gonna be well into cross gen games till the latter half of next year.

Bro I still can't get mine smh

plus we are about to have a year of console release with no games, so its like the 1st year don't count we just got xbox one and ps4 games

But take PS5Pro for example. From what we see from patents it's the same is the PS4Pro, pretty much a double GPU setup. I think that easy and more profitable than the base systems and maybe more appealing now than ever. With that said I have no idea what a semiconductor is.

I had to buy a bundle to get mine.

I wholeheartedly agree given the current situation as rocketfish noted;everythinghas been pushed back so far that unlike how a console generationfeelslike it really kicks off at least a year into its lifespan, this generation is going to take at least an extra year, if not more to settle in. A "proper" refresh only two or three years in would kind of feel like serving dessert just as most people have finally begun settling into their main course.

And one thing that Idoremember about the PS4 Pro's announcement is how it left a bit of a split reaction amongst people because it was unprecedented at the time, with early adopters reacting the most negatively. Although we actually have a precedent, if not expectation set now, I think the unique circumstances of the PS5's rarity and difficulty to attain would only magnify that negativity if they announced a refresh too soonIndeed, which is what makes it especially idiotic when people throw their hands up and cave into scalper prices without an ounce of restraint.

It wouldn't take all that much waiting them out to leave scalpers in a bind as they're sitting on unsold units.

For those whodopay the scalper price, though, it makes the idea of a refresh all the more of a piss take when they just spent PS5 pro money on a basic PS5 because Sony, MS, Nvidia, AMD, and Nintendo all can't be arsed to address scalping.Think of it this way: The consoles are just like any other device, be it a computer, smartphone, or even an automobile where it relies on a silicon chip that requires an especially involved process to fabricate at a semiconductor foundry, which there areveryfew.

For the consoles and current AMD GPUs, that foundry would be TSMC, and part of the reason that the current Nvidia GPUs used the other major foundry, Samsung, isbecauseTSMC was already so backed up on orders. Likewise, those AMD GPUs are practically unicorns because so much of AMD's real orders are probably geared towards their APUs used in both the PS5 and XSX.

The reason this is so important to a PS5 Pro is because that would involve an even more complicated node to be fabricated, when the current process is already a tall order and strained to the point that Sony themselves have conceded that current PS5 shortages could last well into next year.

Whipping up a more advanced APU also means inherently more defects, which depending on how they approach the design could at least be cut down to be used in, say, a PS5 Slim, but it would ultimately mean higher production costs for Sony, when they would more likely wait for the available processes to be refined more in order to reduce manufacturing losses.