The game plans make sense, all of the sim goodness and sandbox from pC2 are still there, but being dressed up more with gamey presentation features similar to Shift/Forza Motorsport. The previous games were lacking there.
The console news has spread to all sorts of tech websites but it still makes no sense. I get wanting to set a cat among the pigeons to cause a jump in performance, but specs alone do not sell consoles to gamers. It's about the whole experience, the available games, the platform/network that your friends are already on, the gamepad, etc. Those who want a high-spec gaming machine in their lounge room can already go out and get a PC for that purpose. I can't see them saving us that much money due to not selling enough units, and the general consensus in other news websites comments is the same - no one is expecting this to succeed.
The specs might sound good now but in 3 years time when this thing releases I'm sure it'll be much more meh, and new consoles from MS/Sony will be close enough.
Or maybe they feel the need to do this because mainstream consoles are looking to stream their games from the cloud by then instead of selling them. And streaming racing games with racing wheels doesn't work too weel.