Can somebody send this article to nintendo?

Switch to? Weren't they already doing this?

They want to cut down from the 8-10 year cycle down to only 3-4

Woof. I don't like the sound of that. Largely because I suspect this will make consoles more expensive for the consumer. As it stands, companies typically sell consoles at cost or at a loss with the long-term plan to make revenue selling games and services. If the development/deployment cycle is cut in half, companies will have less time per console to make that revenue model work, which leads me to think we'd see companies try to change that model to make the margins better. Then you're looking at a world where there's a new system out for each brand every few years and they're each more expensive than earlier consoles. Then again, maybe I'm way off base. Maybe companies would still take a hit on hardware sales.

Who the ____ is upgrading their PC after 3 years? Is this article trying to normalize upgrading electronics years before it is necessary?

Nah, they still have 10 year old tech they need to "introduce" in their newest console.

I'm guessing they're talking about midgen refreshes like the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro. So essentially you'd have a cycle of spec bump - new architecture - spec bump every 3-4 years.

Last gen really benefitted from the mid gen consoles given the move to 4k and in the case of the Xbox, simply underpowered hardware compared to Sony. That's not the case with either machine this generation. I'll continue with my plans to build my first PC in over a decade given more of the games I want to play are either on PC first or PC only, and console games tend to lack mod and peripheral support relative to PC.

PS5 Pro here we go! Next year Christmas I’ll have you 😈

People with money to burn, like those who go all out and get new PC parts every generation.

There are people who upgrade their GPU's every other year, but I doubt it's a majority.

Average PC upgrade cycle is more then 3 to 4 years if you look the Steam Hardware & Software Survey.

Laughs in "my PC will be 10 years old next December" hahahahaha

I’m still rocking my 4790k i7, DDR3, 1070 GTX that I built in 2015…

4790k and RX480 here, still running strong!

The devils canyon CPUs still hold up, especially the i7

4790k ganggang

probably replacing it at the end of the year though, it'll be 9 years old when I do, people who are upgrading their CPU that often are nuts

Laughs in “I don’t even have a PC anymore” hahahahaha

Only with PC upgrades you don't have to buy a whole new pc and sell the old one. They can do what they want but I'm happy using my pc and buying a new console when they offer enough new things to justify buying one. I skipped ps4 since my brother had it. We all know how PS5 was a fiasco with accesibility and now I'm kinda over it. I settled on switch and pc for time being. Switch and steam deck allow me to play on my couch which was sometimes a downside with playing on pc, mostly with casual games. I prefer mouse for anything that needs aiming.

Plus, given the leaps in advancement of game graphics I would have guessed console upgrades would be less needed than more? I'm not sure what to make of it at this time if I'm honest.

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Yep, current gen consoles are very well balanced with CPU, RAM, fast SSD and GPU.

Maybe there could be a mid-gen bump with a better GPU, but hardware development has slowed down, and current CPUs offer very incremental improvement compared to PS5/Xbox Zen 2 CPUs.

Looks at the 9-10 year gap between his last PC parts update.

3-4 years. Sure.

Depends. Maybe gamers want the best of the best.
But for regular users you can make a whole model of this.
Buying the latest tech at maximum costs and keeping that for 6 years is often more expensive and gives you on average a slower system than buying mainstream stuff and keeping it for 3 years.
(environmental costs not included)

Bad news.

Waiting till xmas would make it the beginning of the PS5's Upgrade cycle.

PS 5 Released Nov 2020.

Counterpoint, modern day consoles are now just PCs with a customized off the shelf CPU and GPU. There's no reason their R&D cycle has to be crazy these days because the base is pretty mature.

The irony is that it used to be closer to 4-6 year cycles for consoles. By the end of the PS3 and 360 we were BEGGING for a new console gen.

Intel motherboards have a 2 year lifecycle from what I understand before they change the socket size so you won't be getting processor upgrades unless you buy a new motherboard every 2 years. At this point you may as well be buying a whole new PC because you are going to have to buy new ram because by the time you want to upgrade there will be something faster than DDR 5 plus a new GPU and the ram you have from your old PC probably won't be compatible with the new motherboard. Now if you want to upgrade your GPU every 2 years, just the GPU, that is likely doable but you will need to make sure you have enough watts in your power supply for that to work.

If you are gaming you may as well go AMD, the motherboards have a lot longer of a lifecycle from what I hear.

I’ve got a 7700 & 1070gtx. Only now do I feel like I could use an upgrade but far from necessary especially with current GPU prices.

Damn. I kind of like how far apart new console releases are. It makes it feel like a very quality purchase.

The thing about PCs is they’re customizable. You don’t have to upgrade all at once if you can’t afford it.

So the "Pro" cycle will be rebranded as a full new model and smart consumers will skip a generation in hardware.

If they want to do a cycle this short, then they need to figure out a way to get consumers the new console in less than 2 years after it comes out.

It got worse during COVID, but this has been an issue since the PS3/Wii days.

Besides switching to an SSD and replacing the graphics card because the previous one died in 2018, my 2014 build is still chugging along strong too.

I am not looking forward to a new build at the rate motherboards alone are going for these days.

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Bruh I’m still rocking my 970 from 2015 lol

I’ve had mine for almost a decade now. I used to say I was gonna use my PC till it died when I first built it. At this rate I’m gonna turn it into a plex server and build a new PC in a year or two once I get my first big boy job lmao

Or: customers will be forced to rebuy remastered games for their next gen console, even generations has the same cpu architecture, thus maximizing console makers profits.

Which makes me wonder about the hardware. What’s the point with the kind of hardware that exists these days.

Build every console or PC with an i9-13900k and an rtx 4090. Put a big enough drive inside or allow drive swapping/upgrading. 64gb of 6000 speed ram, And you literally have 4k gaming for the rest of your life.

I have an rtx 3080 and an i9-9900k at 5ghz and I don’t expect to have to upgrade for at least 10 years.

I game on laptops - I bought my current system in November of 2019 - 17" 144Hz 1080p Screen with a RTX 2070 and an i7-9750H. I can still play everything at high or ultra.

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I don’t think I am. I have an easy 300-400 fps at max settings.

Memory clock at 4000 and cpu clock at 5.0 stable no throttling.

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no.

The 9900k is a perfectly capable pairing with the 3080ti.

And yes I’ve played star citizen without any issues. Easily get a minimum of 45-75 fps on max depending on space or city. Never been below 45 for me.

Regardless of what it actually is, many console customers are on console specifically for the certainty of compatibility for X amount of time. Start making it like pc and people will stop buying.

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Just this month was I able to order a PS5 from Amazon without having to resort to buying an overpriced one from some rando reseller or to being in the right Best Buy at the right time. The damned thing came out over two years ago!

Sounds like you slapped your PC together and never went into the bios to take full use of that “k” at the end of the CPUs name.

The i9-9900k at 5ghz is by no means a bottleneck for the rtx 3080ti or 3090 at max settings; And it can handle a 4080ti just fine as well.

The 9900k is by all means good for the next 10 years of gaming, even upgrading to a 4090 won’t bottleneck it.

A 13900k OC to 6.2 GHz with E cores disabled will probably be needed for a top line 50xx series if you wanted one. But at that point there is really no reason to start gaming at 8k, 4k is plenty tbh.

Now if you compare only stock speeds and never OC then sure, upgrade. But maybe stop wasting your money on the “k” if you never plan to put it to use.

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I’m not insulting you, I’m just correcting your inconsistencies and incorrect information. Your arrogance is astounding.

You aren’t gaming at 4k then if you have star citizen at your claimed fps. And yes 45-75 fps is good for 4k on a 3090. Even with a 13900k cpu, you will still see that same drop, It’s the gpu that’s the bottleneck at that point. Sounds more like you are gaming at most at 2k. Which will yield a higher fps on your gpu. Did you even setup the nVidia power settings or go into the game graphics settings to turn the graphics up? Do you even own a 4k monitor?

The “my rig is top notch” statement is mute when you never went into your bios and manually setup your hardware in the first place.

Open task manager, if you have a 13900k CPU, and I’ll bet your running your DDR5 ram at 2100 mhz. If you spent the money on a i9-13900k you better have DDR5-6000 ram, with it properly setup in bios. And if you bought the “k” variant of the CPU, then you better have at minimum a 360mm AIO or custom loop with the clock manually set to 6.0GHz, otherwise you wasted your money for hardware you won’t push to its max potential.

Again, your also comparing stock clocks. A 9900k OC to a minimum of 5.0GHz with DDR4-4400 won’t bottleneck a 4090 running 4k, only if your running it at 8k.

A 13900k stock clock of 5.6 GHz w/ E cores disabled is not much more than the OC’ed 9900k and won’t make a difference to it unless you OC that 13900k to 6.0-6.2 GHz (For 8k gaming).

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It’s phased in over ten years as free allowances in the EU are phased out. So, no. It won’t affect inflation

PS5 still continues to be an amazing deal