Lunchtime Discussion: Updates

So we’re sticking with E3 themed discussions this week, and for the second year in a row we’ve had updates to two consoles announced. Last year we had the PS3 ‘Slim’ and the PSPGo announced and this year we’ve got the 3DS and the Xbox 360 ‘Slim’. Of course whilst these kind of upgrades seem relatively new, we have to remember that there was both a Master System and a Master System II with the second incarnation mostly being a case of redesigning the casing, and Nintendo have been doing incremental updates to their hand held consoles since the start of time.

However the real question is do we like them? I can see some of the reasoning behind the updates to consoles that are becoming more and more prevalent now. Of course there’s the major issue that this generation the life cycle seems to be being stretched further than it has been in recent memory. The manufacturers need to some how keep sales of their consoles up, and an update is a good way to resell the same hardware to some of their existing user base, as well as giving a solid base to launch a new advertising campaign from.

So what is our reception to this? Well it, oddly, seems to be generally positive. Whilst they may include a few new features, such as more USB ports or something along those lines, their isn’t any real upgrade to the console. You can’t play games on the new models that you couldn’t on the old machines, and yet people still will upgrade. Of course part of this is the fear that the original console will die at some point, something we’ve only really had to worry about in this generation. Releasing updates to consoles that attempt to fix the issues existing in the original batch doesn’t really seem like fair play, but that may just be my lack of cash.

So did you upgrade to a new PS3 Slim? Will you be buying the new 360 when it hits our shores? I have to say whilst I don’t really like the idea, I am tempted to pick up the 360 update, apparently it doesn’t actually sound like a jet engine now. How do you feel about the issue as a whole? Let us know.