As below
This. It strikes me that it may be more than just a "we dropped the ball first time we better release an upgraded version".
It reminds me very much of how apple rleases the iphone <insert number here> and 6 months later they release the 's' version. Its a business model designed to produce more sales as techies want the latest and greatest. How many PS4 owners double dipped with a pro? Likewise xbox owners with the x?
If the sales figures show a boost, then pound to a penny the folks at sony / microsoft will be looking to capitalise.
Regular refreshes seems to be the market in general for games too. A new fifa every year. Or a new cod etc. Then within those releases are 2-3 special editions costing more.
Movies are the same. A new star wars each year. A new marvel/dc movie every 6-12 months A new fast and furious movie. So on and so forth.
With consoles its a way to keep the tech more up to date and maximise sales from those who must have the latest. It also reduces impact of one manufacturer releases a turkey and the other releases a beast. Design life arguably doesent need to be as long so componentry can be cheaper too and thus rrp lower. Theres many benefits.
Just my opinion, call it a hunch. I may be totally wrong!
Yeah deffo modern business practice. Rockstar do it with their games, timed exclusive on consoles, they will refuse to answer questions "will it come on PC", then of course after everyone buys for their console they release on PC and people buy a second time.
On the ps4 launch model, the two obvious oversights were the small hdd and limited wifi capability, at the time of the launch 5ghz wifi was a very mature technology that you could get even on low end phones and laptops, so I think it was a conscious decision to omit it, knowing later down the line people would double dip to get that kind of enhancement.
Also as you say very common on phones.
JRPG devs have been doing this for a decade or more on their games.
In PS3 era. would often get game in japan first.
Then released in EU/USA with added content, then "rereleased" in japan called "international edition" with the updated westernised features. Then they often still not done, would often be a release on the competitor console (as often they did timed exclusive), the competitor console would get further new content. Tales of vesperia, XBOX360 version, later on the PS3 with added content, same with eternal sonatra, star ocean 4 didnt get new content as such but did get enhancements like UI selection and language selection.
Also in that era we had store exclusives, etc. taking off, when Fable 2 got released, you had to buy 4 copies of the game to get all content, and you also had to buy a mobile phone to get a DLC linked to that phone. Even to this day dev's dont feel like they ripping people off when they tie content to specific stores, its crazy anti consumer practice. But thankfully is less common than it used to be.
It looks like with consoles we going to be moving to 3 year releases. The upside been at least BC looks like it may be common place (at least on microsoft, not so sure about sony yet) so one could skip generations maybe.
My ps4 game library is a fraction of the ps3 library I have, much less games released and a shorter shelf life as a bonus.
