I think leaving out the UHD is a huge mistake. Everyone keeps trying to defend the move with 'LOL EVERYONE STREAMS NOW IT DOESN'T MATTER,' but the people who care enough about visual fidelity to buy 4k TVs are exactly the people who care enough about visual fidelity to purchase physical media. I also think most people are heavily underestimating how much bandwidth it takes to stream 4k video; my internet is the best I can get in my suburban area (22ish down) and it can't even handle 1080p half the time for whatever reason, not to mention that it has a bandwidth cap, so there's no way in hell I could stream 4k video even if I did own a 4k TV.

Nope. Sure some people might hold off on the Pro now but in terms of actual numbers? I bet it barely makes a difference. A blunder maybe, but nowhere near the biggest.

@nagafen: @artisanbreads:

I know it doesn't look like much when you say its only adds $15 dollars, but when a company looks at making something on a large scale, they check where every penny goes, because those pennies eventually add up. And when they plan on selling millions of something for $400, if they add $15 dollars to the cost of a product, (assuming they are making profit or breaking even on hardware, not selling at a loss) that's $15 dollars they could have banked and used somewhere else for every console sold. Essentially losing money for a feature that they assume wont add much value, or effect the consumers decision much. To you, you look at it as a measly $15 dollars more for a feature in the PS4 pro, which you might gladly pay to get a 4K Blu-Ray player out of it. Sony looks at it as a potential loss of millions (or billions) because they need to hit that $400 price point, and with more users going to streaming anyway its hard to justify the cost for a company to do that.

It would be nice if the PS4 pro was an "all in one" 4K media box, just so people could be happy that they don't need to buy anything else. But for me personally i still don't even have a 4K TV, and if i did i still wouldn't buy UHD movies on disk, since i haven't even bought a Bu-Ray and just stream (hell i don't even watch as much TV anymore). And $400 for a new PS4 pro that can potentially make games look even better on a old 1080p TV has me interested, but still waiting it out to see the big benefits over the normal PS4.

I think PS4 slim and pro are far from the biggest blunders Sony has made. Just look at the PS3 launch and tell me honestly that looked better then this has.

@ajamafalous: 25Mb/s is the recommended minimum for 4k from Netflix, so streaming that two hours a night gets you 675GB worth of usage per month.

Slim is still a more powerful gaming machine than the Xbox One S. So I have no idea where you are getting the idea that the Xbox One S outclasses it.

I'm sure Scorpio will be more powerful than the Pro, but that'll be a year from now. If you wait you can always get something more powerful. This isn't a new or odd thing.

I can see why some would want 4K Blu-ray on Pro, but I really couldn't care. I expect to stream all my 4K content, so it's no big deal. And I won't even have 4K capability (TV and amp) for a year probably. By that point the idea of buying a disc will seem even more strange.

And as to the supposition above that people who buy 4K TVs are more likely the disc type, I think that is exactly backwards. They are more likely to have fast internet and thus aren't interested in discs.

It's kinda weird they didn't say anything about PSVR. I find that somewhat ominous.

@nagafen: I think ya'll need to slow your collective roll with this, "Sony killed the Playstation", nonsense. That announcement had issues, but if you look at how people use modern consoles and consume movies, not having that 4K Blue ray player isn't really a big deal. Also, what are you doing in the year 2016 hooking up these consoles with anything less than an HDMI signal? Only a small minority of people needed those legacy connections and it's better for everyone that we move medium standards forward whenever possible. The 4K player thing also doesn't hurt because who really keeps a huge collection of dics around to watch movies? If anything, more people stream content than who just pop in a disc. Also, if you really want 4K content, Sony and Youtube got you covered. The bigger issue with that announcement is that you only saw the difference if you were in that room for that stream, like Vinny and Alex were.

This announcement shouldn't be painted as a miss-step so much as Sony trying to get in on the ground floor of a new format. That's doubly so when you consider that Sony is a major TV manufacturer and brand and have a vested interest in people wanting 4K anything, so if they need to leverage the Playstation brand to do that they will do it becuase they know people love Playstation right now. The Pro offers you added performance in every respect, including games not running in 4K. In my opinion, buying an xbox one s would be a waste unless you already got into a 4K TV and are really keen on paying too much for a physical copy of a movie. Also, I think you'd be pretty disappointed if you had an xbox one s now because you'd be locked into an ecosystem that doesn't have nearly the same caliber of library or depth of library. Also, I'm not sold on whether or not the average film company really want to pour more assests into making physical copies of movies like we saw with DVD and Blue Ray. It costs a lot of money and time to do a Blue Ray copy of a movie, much less a UHD or 4K versions.

So for now, you might just need to breath a little and really consider if anyone killed or ruined anything, or the multi-billion dollar company maybe had a better idea of how people consume content they help produce and sell than you did. But, I'm not your Mom or Dad so you cna do what you want with your money, and feel how you feel. No matter how reactionary and pessimistic you are. That's your right.

@bisonhero: @ssully: @belowstupid: I guess that's a regional thing. I mean, if the legal streaming options here in Scandinavia weren't absolute garbage I guess the same would be true here, but as it is just about everything on Netflix and the competing services are region locked and not competitively priced compared to just getting one of the "3 for $10" bluray deals at your local grocery store. I still buy quite a few blurays and even DVD's, some of which I have to import from Italy, the UK or Austria, because little of it is legally available on the streaming services. And if anything is, it's spread across like four different services, so the $15 a month subscription isn't worth it for either of the services individually.

The PS4 Pro not having a 4k bluray player convinced you to not buy PSVR.... uh huh...

@shindig said:

No, it wouldn't make things cheaper. But if I'm gonna pay 400 dollars for a new console every three years, I don't see why I don't divert that money + a little more to the highest end graphics I can get in the form of a PC. Bah, I don't know. I just really don't like the idea of upgrading to a new console so soon, especially if there's a better setup on the PC out there.

I only really care about the PS exclusives I know are coming out, the Xbox ones are not interesting to me, otherwise I will buy on PC when I can. I don't have unlimited funds, so I may trade my old PS4 in. I have not turned on my Xbox one since I replayed Red Dead. That was awesome. The PC Xbone crossover seems cool if they include steam. I have too many games on there. That would be a great value add to help me stay a two console dude when Scorpio comes out.

For me the slim models make no sense. They don't address the games running at poor frame rates, don't take advantage of my 4K tv I got on the cheap (for games, don't give a crap about 4K blue ray), and the price drop is not that great. I won't jump to the conclusion of the slim consoles are the worst idea ever, but I do think they are a missed opportunity. A good price drop could have got these into more hands and increased the user base.

To me, the biggest blunder in this whole thing, which is not just specific to Sony, is the emphasis on HDR output. While it's likely awesome, most HDR TVs have really lousy input lag when the setting is enabled, making gaming impractical or impossible. Both Microsoft and Sony are pushing this so hard that they risk alienating consumers who actually go out and upgrade to a 4K HDR TV, because there's a good chance they'll have a shitty experience. Digital Foundry had an article that discussed this and recommended some specific TVs that have acceptably small input lag.

If it had a 4K Blu Ray player it would be over £400 and I wouldn't be buying it. Who buys movies on disc any more anyway? That market's shrinking, it makes no sense to invest in it. Better to cut costs to get more buyers in.

Man everyone saying they are gonna stream 4k content are completely insane. Must be lucky to have fiber internet with no cap. Most people will not be able to stream 4k for any amount of time. What's the point of the 4k console if you're barely going to be able to get native 4k content? It honestly makes the console look like a cheap trick from Sony to swindle people.

As someone who has yet to jump into the current console generation due to the 'uh..everything is on the pc. For me this entire thing has just been "Crap, there are games coming out I really want to play (FF15, PS5) that mean I have to buy a PS4....hey a price drop, right in time for Christmas!" Since I could care less if the games run great, just that they run (that's the kinda gamer I am).

The idea of being able to get a decent deal on a PS4, at a price-point I can justify spending for only the handful of exclusives I wouldn't buy a system to play, but will if I own it plus the two I really want to play (yah I know PS5 is ps3 but..meh).

As the pro version of the PS4 is totally off my radar, and nothing microsoft has produced since windows 7 has been on interest to me for the most part, the ps4 slim is great. And, I would bet, I am the exact target audience for that console. Or, one of them. Not everyone owns a PS4 after all.

You know, I'm not sure. As someone who hasn't picked up a PS4 yet because I've been waiting for certain exclusives to release such as FFXV, Persona 5, and Horizon, the Pro is looking mighty tempting. Not because of the 4k "capabilities," but more to do with the improved general visual quality and framerates.

@ripelivejam: A thousand buckaroonies! That's a whole lotta shrapnel!

I think physical movies are niche at this point and Sony not including UHD Blu-ray support is a smart move. Maybe if trends shift they'll add one in the next PlayStation, but right now it seems kinda pointless. 1080p isn't dead yet, and they still have 40 million+ regular ass ps4's out there in the wild. From my perspective PS Pro is a good first step for 4k.

Consoles aren't really where I would go for options. It's not a tailored experience. I'd rather decide exactly what's in my system than accept what the company deems important. A console to me is just a piece of DRM, an expensive license to play their exclusives, useless outside of that function.

I'd rather rip the 4K disc and then encode the video into my monitor's native 2560x1440 (cropped) with Handbrake, using H.264 compression so light that I almost can't see the difference, before muxing the raw audio tracks (and subs and chapters) with MKVMerge. Hopefully, AACS2.0 (4K BD copy protection) will be cracked soon.

I can only imagine the 4K Blu-Ray player is a matter of pricing, but no matter its still bad. I wouldn't buy 4K blu-ray either way, more than likely, but its still weird to tout the Pro as something made for 4K but then leave that out.

I've seen a lot of ignorant comments online (not really at GB) about how Sony is getting cocky again like they did with the PS3 and I simply don't see it. Making a mistake isn't being cocky. I'm wondering how much of Sony Proper's massive screwups this year, and prior, are making things harder for Sony Gaming to do their job financially.

Let me put it this way, they aren't in trouble anymore than Microsoft admitted defeat this "generation" in announcing the Scorpio (which the publicly used code names are just getting stupid at this point).

I can only assume all the people saying "no one uses discs anymore" have fast broadband with no caps.

There's still a lot of places that can't even stream 1080 at anywhere near blu-ray quality, let alone 4k.

I for one want my first 4k capable machine to have a 4k blu-ray player otherwise I'll never actually see any of this wondrous 4k media.

Then don't. At that point you're just keeping up with the Jones'. Take one every seven. If things get to a point where a new generational shift happens every three years, we'll be in the midst of such a bizarre technical revolution.

I wasn't too happy with the whole 'this is a 4k machine' spiel they did. I really wished it had a 4k blu ray as well. But after seeing the initial Digital foundry reports I can see how this thing might be good value for some people. If you haven't bought a PS4 yet and you want higher fidelity games 400$ isn't a bad deal. It's just not for me though. I'll stick with my PC for full resolution 4k gaming. I do want a standalone 4k blu ray player though so if Scorpio has that and stays under 500$ I may well end up buying that.

@bdead: No reason to wait for Scorpio, if you just want the 4K UHD Blu Ray player. The One S has that. It's also the cheapest one on the market, I'm pretty sure, if you buy the 500gb model.

@fisk0: I don't know if that holds true, at least not for me. I spend about $45 on streaming services (Netflix, HBO, Viaplay) along with renting movies on iTunes. If I would only buy movies at 3 for $10 I could get 13.5 movies/month for $45. I could easily break that with those services by just watching 3-4 movies per week and still have tv-shows for months untouched. So from a value proposition, at least to me, buying blu rays even cheaply isn't competitive anymore. But I also think a lot of my movie consumption has veered a lot in recent years and I probably watch a lot more garbage as a result. I used to be a lot more keen on seeking out and watching movies of renown and high critical reception. These days I can have tacos and watch a lot more garbage for entertainment's sake, which is why those streaming services are a good alternative. I mean, I still buy the occasional blu ray, but it's limited to those special gems rather than something to watch on a lazy Saturday when you're bored.

Also, man, I'm so over switching discs.

I care about visual fidelity in games, it's why I bought one of LG's flagship models when I bought my 1080p set. And if I would buy a 4K set and go for 4K content, I still would be fine with streaming from my PS4/PS5, whatever. Because I don't buy game consoles for their movie playing capability, I buy them for their games. Likewise, I buy tv-sets to my gaming setup specifically to make my games look good, movies are an afterthought there.

But I realize I'm a real edge case since I have a separate gaming room setup. And if me and my wife decides to watch a movie it's done in the living room, and if I wanted to go 4K there I might consider getting a stand alone UHD player if I really wanted it. But also, I don't really have any streaming cap to speak of.

I don't think it's their biggest blunder, but I believe Sony probably expected more than the overall "meh" reaction to the reveal.

@ralphmoustaccio: You're right,I totally forgot about the S. It sure is tempting and the 500Gb model might be all I need.

Yeah not including Optical port is a mistake that should not be overlooked.

However I think that PS4 pro is a step up of the original PS4 providing twice the performance and this is what the installed base are going to think about when they see it in the market and this is what Sony is thinking about too.

Now Microsoft have a chance to win this battle if and only if Scorpio becomes cheaper than Pro or at the same price.

No.

The lack of UHD Blu-ray is a minor mistake that Microsoft might be able to take advantage of, but we already saw the whole media player versus game console debate playout at launch, and game console prevailed.

A marketing mistake is that instead of calling the new SKU "Playstation 4 Pro" they should have kept it "Playstation 4." The new system should have been marketed as a replacement for people with 4K TVs, and the Slim as the older system for those without 4K TVs, not the PS4's replacement. Slapping "Pro" on the console, besides being dumb, brands it as the Scorpio competitor for some people.