8 Disastrous Console Upgrades The PS4.5 Must Learn From
Sony aren't the first to try and fail at this, you know.
Although the incremental PS4.5, PS4K (or whatever you want to call it) is definitely happening, Sony have so far said nothing - probably because such a move is like a relic from the games industry of the 90s.
They'd usually arrive at a late point in a system's life cycle, improving its power and technical capabilities to try and squeeze a bit more life out the console before it inevitably dies.
Historically, these ventures have been a disaster, not so much reasserting their given console as establishing that it's well and truly dead - sort of like opening up a grave and zapping a body with a defibrillator just in the hope that it wakes up and shouts "I'M BAAAAACK!"
Sadly, it's just not gonna end well.
The PS4.5 fits into the 'mid-cycle upgrade' category because it seems that it'll be the same console internally, except for that much-touted capacity for 4K resolutions, but Sony need to be diligent, otherwise it'll end up like this list of console upgrade disasters...
8. Sega CD
Sega's decision to start tinkering with its much-loved Genesis was arguably the beginning of a long and excruciatingly drawn-out end for the company's console ventures.
In a bid to gain some ground on the runaway Super Nintendo, Sega made a CD expansion for the Genesis, offering greater storage capacities, and added power that would allow for a 'Genesis 2.0' generation of games to come out. It also doubled as a CD player - a feature that played a big part in the PlayStation's success just a few years later.
So what went wrong?
At $300, the Mega-CD was alarmingly pricey, though western markets warmed to it thanks to a small but high-quality games collection, made up mostly of graphically-enhanced re-releases of Genesis games.
With that said, it still couldn't compete with the SNES, and despite over two million sales, Sega began closing development on the Mega-CD barely a year after its US and European launch.
What the PS4.5 can learn:
Don't make customers spend huge amounts of money on an incremental add-on.