I've been thinking about the power of the console lately and considering how fast technology has already leapfrogged it. Considering the system is essentially a pc, the next console should be backward compatible with current games if they continue on that path.

So if they wanted to do a mid-life update without segregating the user base too badly, I have been thinking a lot about nVidia's Dynamic Super Resolution technology.

Lets say they release a PS4.5 a couple years from now with a GPU that can do 4k. They could still support people with 1080p TVs and older PS4 games by super sampling the games at 4k, then rendering them at 1080p. People lucky enough to have 4k TVs would then just run them at native resolution.

The games could be coded with auto selectable resolution so if you put the game in the original PS4, it would only render at 1080p. Something similar to how games work on mobile. If you have an Iphone 4, you can still run some Iphone 5 games, just not that great. Or if you have an older PC, newer games can be run with less detail.

I'm pretty sure its much more complicated than this but it has me hopeful that they will iterate the system more frequently this time around. I personally don't have a problem buying a new console every 3-5 years. As much as I would like to see another 7-10 years life cycle for this console, it can barely manage 1080p/30fps most of the time.

I know the problem with this is that some games would want to take advantage of the new horsepower and would only work on new system though. And eventually they would stop supporting older gen hardware like how Apple makes newer versions of iOS not compatible with older hardware. But this at least would give publishers a way to support the previous generation at the same time without charging us for remasters...

I'd rather they just made something that can run games at 1080p60.

Also I highly doubt that backwards-compatibility will come that freely, even for this generations slightly more PC-like consoles.

I would not be surprised if game consoles become more like smartphones sooner or later. One new iteration every year with slightly better components, and then it could be clearly stated which version of the console you need to play a certain game.

I actually don't know how realistic that is, though.

Technology didn't "leapfrogged" it, graphics cards released in 2012 were already more powerful.

Also in order to get a console that can reliably run at 4k is nigh impossible, the GPU would have to be beastly, actually the only way to get good performance with 4k today is to have a SLI or CF setup so yeah not happening anytime soon(definitely not in a couple of years), not only the cost would be prohibitive but they would have a tough time solving the cooling problem on such a small package, that or the consoles would have to be 2-3 times the size they are today...

We may be getting affordable 4k displays already but I believe that getting affordable hardware to run stuff at 4k is a ways off still, that will require technology on graphics processing to progress in such a way that a single mid range video card can do 4k, i don't see that happening in less than 5 years at the very least.

Plus who knows... sometime streaming tech might get good enough that all the horsepower to run the games will be server side, all you'll need to run the games at awesome quality will be a cheap little box like that steam link thing.

The very second you say, "...games could be coded with auto selectable resolution" you are making console games more complex to make and thus less stable. The beauty of consoles is hopefully the player put a disc in or they download the game and it JUST WORKS.

The cycle of consoles works really well. Its is actually far more simple and stable to 'run-out' the usefulness of old consoles than try to improve them with mid-era updates. A mid-era update, no matter how well panned, always cut some players off and make the people with the update a niche. It better to draw every last ounce of usefulness from what you have while planning a more substantive switch than to self correct later.

In the past few years 720p and 1080p were hard to tell a part without side by side video. The difference between 1080p and 4K will be even smaller to discern. The difference beyond that are an every reducing target. Can you discern them? Sure, but into not like the jump from Atari 2600 and NES, or SNES and N64. PS2 kicking N64 ass shows that graphics are not the whole goal, as does Wii and PS3. And, Wii vs Wii U show that other factors can make or ruin you, as does Sega32x and SegaCD. A simple clear efficient selling of a decent console will always work better than form a business perspective thean wildly trying to catchup to every factor.

Anyone worried that PScs being able to show 1920x1440 @ 80-120fps makes consoles less advantageous is delusional. Such thinking misses the whole point of why PCs and consoles co-exist, and will likely always co-exist. It would be like someone saying, "Well too bad rats are going away...look at all these cats in the US...rats are OBVIOUSLY doomed!!!!" Consoles, like rats fit a niche and won't go away no matter how many cats and no matter how big their claws.

Really? I was starting to think that consoles are becoming more and more irrelevant, and I could foresee a future where they cease to exist. Consoles came about in an era when your average person was just not computer literate at all. Game machines had to be plug-n-play no muss no fuss by necessity. That's not really the case today. And computer components are easier than ever to work with. When I see the PS4 and XboxOne not even able to reliably do 1080/60, and a general lack of quality software going on two years now, I question why they even exist at all.

@monkeyking1969: 4k is equivalent to something like 2560p I think, which is a much higher number than 1080. I might be wrong but.