PlayStation 4 Pro

[Claytone]

Surprised to not see a thread on this yet!

As I'm sure everyone knows, Sony revealed their PS4 Pro model. It supports 4K output and boasts an improved GPU. All this for only $100 more than their newly announced slim unit.

For folks like me who didn't previously own a PS4, the Pro seems like a no-brainer, but I know there are some rumblings of discontent around the internet, especially regarding certain perceived missteps, such the lack of a 4K Blu-ray player.

What do y'all think of this new model? Will any current PS4 owners be grabbing one of these anyway, or perhaps looking for a trade-in deal? Would love to hear everyone's thoughts.

[Kong Wen]

Even with the apparent missteps, I see it as a no-brainer for someone who doesn't already have a PS4. The price is the same as an original PS4 and it does more.

For most people who already have a PS4, I see very little reason upgrade. The folks who would be considering upgrading are the folks for whom these quibbles with the pro console's capabilities really come into play.

I don't have a 4k TV, and I do have a PS4. So I'm looking at paying an additional $400 ($500 in Canada) to get some patched-up games with better framerate. It's not worth it.

For people who do have a 4k TV and do already have a PS4, they can actually make use of most of the system's features, and it's understandable that they'd want to get the most out of them in order to make the cost of upgrading worth it. No 4k BRD support is an odd misstep, but I don't fully understand how that even works—is it something that could be patched in via a firmware update, or is it purely a hardware limitation?

All that said, when Bungie announces a Pro patch for Destiny, if it looks good... if it looks good, I'm going to have a very hard life.

[VictorViper]

They absolutely failed in providing a compelling reason for me to upgrade. My empty wallet appreciates this.

[Claytone]

Even with the apparent missteps, I see it as a no-brainer for someone who doesn't already have a PS4. The price is the same as an original PS4 and it does more.

Agreed. That's why I've pre-ordered one myself.

No 4k BRD support is an odd misstep, but I don't fully understand how that even works—is it something that could be patched in via a firmware update, or is it purely a hardware limitation?

This is not something you can fix with software, to the best of my knowledge. Your disk drive is either 4K compatible or not. Basically, the drive has to be capable of reading and producing 4K video (which is obviously more bits per unit time than 1080p video) at the speed necessary to playback video. Software simply can't bridge that gap.

That is to say, a standard BRD player only expects to have to read so much data/time based on the amount of audiovisual information stored per frame of video, so the hardware was designed accordingly (and to design it to be robust to higher definition would have been a needless expense until now). Telling something "read more bits per second!" in software is meaningless if the drive simply physically cannot do so.

I'm almost certainly over-explaining this to someone like you, who I know is reasonably familiar with computers/technology, but maybe someone else will read it for whom it will be helpful.

Anyway, why they did this is almost certainly a question of how it would affect their margin. I'm guessing they don't stand to earn all that much on the PS4 Pro per unit as it stands, and a 4K player may have cut the margin too slim. Meanwhile, the $300 Xbox One S has a 4K Blu-ray player because the rest of the unit has the original Xbone hardware, so Microsoft probably saw room in the unit cost to throw in that player. Just my guess.

All that said, when Bungie announces a Pro patch for Destiny, if it looks good... if it looks good, I'm going to have a very hard life.

It is my sincere hope that these patches are common, and more importantly, that they become a consideration for new games. I hope this technological boost isn't wasted on lazy developers.

[Kong Wen]

It is my sincere hope that these patches are common, and more importantly, that they become a consideration for new games. I hope this technological boost isn't wasted on lazy developers.

Patching existing games might be a tall order in terms of the effort it'd take for studios to go back and work on something they've already released when they're probably knee-deep in a new project. But I sure hope anyone working on new games that haven't come out yet would begin working Pro functionality into their development plans.

Hmm... I mentioned Destiny for obvious reasons, but it'd also be interesting to see what No Man's Sky would look like with some more power behind it.

[SkyPikachu]

The consoles $550 in Australia and I got my 1TB for $400 so there's a big price difference I just can't understand why they don't put backwards compatibility it's a huge fuck you to their fans. I'd buy a pro if it could play PS3 games (if I could play ps1-2 discs as well I'd pay tons for it)

[The Shoemaker]

The consoles $550 in Australia and I got my 1TB for $400 so there's a big price difference I just can't understand why they don't put backwards compatibility it's a huge fuck you to their fans. I'd buy a pro if it could play PS3 games (if I could play ps1-2 discs as well I'd pay tons for it)

I'd like backwards compatibility as well, I'm not sure how much extra it would cost, but I'm pretty sure they would have to literally build a PS3 in a PS4 for that to work, or do whatever Xbox is doing, which appears to be a game by game basis. I kind of think the days of backwards compatibility are gone, I doubt NX will have it either. It's a lot of effort to put in when they can just sell people newly remastered last gen games, or get them to keep the previous console/buy one.

I'm not upgrading. I don't have a 4K TV, and I can't see them making games in the future that only preform well on PS4 Pro. And even if they do, I just won't buy the games. I agree that they didn't give current owners a big reason to upgrade, but it's a great deal for those who are looking to buy a PS4. With that said if I didn't have one, I would probably go for the Slim. I was never the target demographic for a hardware upgrade in the first place. Give me the cheapest model you got!

[SkyPikachu]

The consoles $550 in Australia and I got my 1TB for $400 so there's a big price difference I just can't understand why they don't put backwards compatibility it's a huge fuck you to their fans. I'd buy a pro if it could play PS3 games (if I could play ps1-2 discs as well I'd pay tons for it)

I'd like backwards compatibility as well, I'm not sure how much extra it would cost, but I'm pretty sure they would have to literally build a PS3 in a PS4 for that to work, or do whatever Xbox is doing, which appears to be a game by game basis. I kind of think the days of backwards compatibility are gone, I doubt NX will have it either. It's a lot of effort to put in when they can just sell people newly remastered last gen games, or get them to keep the previous console/buy one.

I'm not upgrading. I don't have a 4K TV, and I can't see them making games in the future that only preform well on PS4 Pro. And even if they do, I just won't buy the games. I agree that they didn't give current owners a big reason to upgrade, but it's a great deal for those who are looking to buy a PS4. With that said if I didn't have one, I would probably go for the Slim. I was never the target demographic for a hardware upgrade in the first place. Give me the cheapest model you got!

Nintendo can't do backwards compatibility easily due to the gamepad. Microsoft and Sony should be able to easily afaik it would just require the console to be able to read PS3 discs then have some software. The big thing right now is there's ton of digital games on the PS3 that aren't on PS4 Spyro Trilogy for example which isn't even a PS3 game it's so annoying that I've bought sonys new console but can't play these games make it easy for me. Imagine apps on the iPhone that only worked on iPhone 5s but not the latest it never happens Apps will work across multiple models at least digitally this should be happening and not slowly like what Xbox have been doing.

[Spore]

Sony should be able to easily afaik it would just require the console to be able to read PS3 discs then have some software.

I think you're really, really downplaying the difficulty of this. The PS3 uses a weird esoteric architecture that is much different to code for than any other modern console. I believe this is the reason Sony's "solution" to backwards compatibility is to stream the game video to you instead of having it run natively on your hardware.

[The Shoemaker]

I agree that the worst is digital games not being available on both platforms, Nintendo and Microsoft struggle with this too, there are a lot of last gen digital only games I'd like to play on the newer consoles. I just don't think it's all that easy.