The generational leap hasn't been as big as the last one, but the consoles only compare badly to more expensive pc builds, which is really not surprising. I think a good comparison for sales would be Diablo 3, a very classically PC game, which had about half of it's sales on console. Had some teething issues though, if I remember.
Tropico 5 is a sort of world-building/strategy sim I've been playing this month (free on PS+), and while visually it doesn't seem far off from Planet Coaster, that's more complex in what you can do (and obviously there's the physics simulation to account for). The Xbox one has a marginally more powerful CPU, but playing this game I thought I could only really see it working with thoughtful motion controls for fine manipulation of lots of objects/track pieces (pc users could really benefit from a good implementation of that too), and that's something only the ps4, and perhaps the NX, has. Maybe they will support keyboards or mice, but that's a niche thing, really it would have to work well with what's in the box to sell.
I think it would need a significant effort to make a console edition that is not a pale shadow of the pc version, but there would be a good reward for doing so, and the barrier is mainly interface, not power. If it wouldn't be able to run well on current consoles, then the same would be true of a good chunk of the pc gaming market (only about half of pc steam users have 8gb of ram or above, for instance).
I'm going to address your arguments in the sequence you put them, this is to be clear and concise, even if the flow of my argument is not as neat as it could be.
1.1 The leap between consoles and PCs in terms of processing processing power is rather big I am afraid. The XBOX ONE, which has the slightly more powerful CPU of the two (which you pointed out) is still only clocking 1.75Ghz, with two quad core modules. This is quite slow compared with even your run of the mill i5; yes, the i5 does not have eight cores, but this is not necessarily to its disadvantage. Few game developers take advantage of all of these cores (it's laborious, according to several developers discussing PS4 development). See here:
http://wccftech.com/planetside-2-ps4-cpu-bottleneck-1080p60fps/. I have only provided one as you can easily find multiple examples of developers loathing the bottleneck that the XBOX ONE's and PS4's CPUs provide.
1.2 - Only 7 of the 8 cores of the consoles are available to developers, which is still proving to be a pain because of the poor AMD design and, as stated, the slow clock speed.
1.3 - I should add as an extra note that if the Planet Coaster devs take advantage of multiple cores, which it would appear that they are doing, the chance of porting the game will be almost nil.
2. I would apprechiate you providing where you are getting your Diablo 3 console figures please.
3. Tropico does not do the same number of calculations as Planet Coaster, I can tell this from just looking at it (having played it). It does not have thousands of park visitors, possibly hundreds of staff, coasters running on tracks with physics manipulation, rides and so on. The only thing they share, largely, is an economic machine.
4. So I go back to my original argument, the barrier is still raw power. Aside from that, the controls would not be worth the development because it would not sell nearly enough for the investment. As previously argued, Diablo 3 and Planet Coaster are not comparable. I am curious as to how Skylines will be implemented, but I doubt it will be worth the investment. I await to see the results.
5. RAM is easily upgradable on a PC, consoles cannot upgrade anything (yes, I know of the PS4.5, but that is a cosmetic upgrade, not a core upgrade. All games must be playable on PS4. Again, where did you get your figures?
It is my estimation that we will never see Planet Coaster on consoles; I think Frontier would be wasting their time. It is becoming clearer than numerous companies that specialise in strategy, isometric games want nothing to do with the consoles, Firaxis being a key example. It is too much hassle for serious limitations and little gain.
Regards,
R.
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You could always try to ship the game with it's own custom Keyboard and mouse which is designed for the counsels for those who really want to try to run it... (Though I'd imagine that hardware differences might also complicate such a port even if you could get a working keyboard and mouse for your PS4 or Xbox....)
So the developer would have to rely on further peripherals for the game's sale? That would not work and has been proven to be a financial sinkhole.