[saturdaysaint]

I mostly side with your thinking, yet the model the author describes does seem a lot more congruous with how we buy cell phones and tablets, and I've been impressed by how game makers have handled that fragmentation. If game makers can target 4-5 year old systems but offer bonuses (faster framerates, 4K compatibility, etc) to new systems, I can see a more phone-like release schedule working for consumers and content creators.

[forgottenpass]

A cell phone is much easier to upgrade on a shorter timeframe. Partially because it's such a bigger part of the average user's life than a console, but mostly because carriers with phone subsidies build in a refresh cycle and set the pace. If anything, the phone lifespan should probably be getting longer as the computational and functional advances from phone revision to revision have slowed down so much.

I probably wouldn't mind such thinking about consoles if, and only if, the manufactures used the cert processes to really held the developers feet to the fire and prevent the version targeting older revisions from slipping in quality on non-graphical aspects. And not letting them just drop the support for an old version like a phone developer because "Oh my god, the APIs aren't identical, and you even want me to test on multiple pieces of hardware WHATEVER WILL I DO!?"