By Jeremy Julian
@faithfulmantis
In the last few months, we’ve seen Microsoft and Sony announce new upgraded versions of their current consoles that are on the market. Microsoft is releasing a new Xbox One titled the “Scorpio” and Sony is releasing a new Playstation 4 model titled “Neo”.
Many gamers and media members alike are contemplating why these companies are releasing the new upgraded systems and how much will they cost. Being a huge fan of both systems myself I have weighed in on how I feel about these new upgrades.
This may be a smart business move for both companies but mainly for Microsoft. When
The Xbox One was originally released it was known to be less powerful than the Playstation 4 which is considerably true. Less processing power overall for the Xbox One makes it harder to run games at full 1080p resolution, a problem the Playstation 4 does not face.
Microsoft is addressing this problem (along with others) by releasing a new version of their system that has 6 times more teraflops than the original Xbox One released in 2013.
But why not just make this a whole new console instead of just an upgrade?
5 teraflops more is a massive upgrade compared to the 1 teraflop jump from 360 to the One. That staggering number gives me the impression that the Scorpio may be a whole new system altogether.
Microsoft announcing the processing power of this system may have Sony
Scrambling and reworking their process for the development and release of the Neo.
In my opinion Sony should rethink their strategy because if the reports on the Neo processing power is true, it won’t even compare to what Microsoft has in the Scorpio.
Many people contemplate if this is necessary to make new $300-400 systems when they just released the originals 3 years ago. But in reality, this could be great thing to do because this may be the future of gaming. Instead of 7 to 10 year waits for new systems we may be looking at hardware upgrades every 3 to 4 years.
These small upgrades make it much cheaper to make the systems which would translate to more affordable consoles, costing the consumers less money.
It should be an interesting year as we hear more information regarding these systems and what each company plans to do in order to stay competitive.
