PS4 Pro: Were You Sold?

No UHD Blu-ray drive was the deciding factor for me. I still can't believe they aren't including it given that the newest Xbone has one. I have a PS4 and I'm a blu-ray collector. I was really looking forward to this being the start of me (probably foolishly) spending money on 4K media. I'll just stick to my old PS4 and PC now.

Unless there's a price error on Amazon (it's how I got my PS4) or something else crazy, there is pretty much zero chance I'm getting a Pro now.

It can't play 4k blu-rays so hell no.

People still buy physical media?

I'm pretty excited to get one, myself.

I was someone interested in upgrading from my launch PS4 before this event, but after? hell no.

I gain nothing from getting a Pro, they didn't talk about it in anyway that made me interested as an average consumer, it can't play 4k blu-ray, many journalists have game dev sources saying development for the Pro is a huge pain in the ass, etc.

Least I am theoretically 400 dollars richer now.

@cyraxible: only the vast majority of people. Do you know the bandwidth and data required for 4K streaming? It's huge.

It was an awful reveal the Pro looks like ass but £349 is a good price for better graphics and frame rate is all that counts at the end of the day.

Has it been confirmed that it doesn't support 4K Blu-Rays? Besides the Stuff.tv tweet (whoever they are), I haven't seen any official confirmation.

...and as a PC and PS4 owner, no I'm not sold.

Really hard to show anything on that stream. Also, I think there's some questions around it still. I believe to do HDR correctly, for example, you need can upgraded version of HDMI that old PS4's may not have? I am not 100% on that but I guess that speaks to how the messaging has been pretty poor.

Also, little info about stuff like framerate being better.

I'm a PC gamer but I do have interest in following this stuff. So for me it's not being sold but hoping they do provide people with good options. I think Scorpio seems like it is going to be a lot more powerful at this point and seems like a better option.

I was already going to get a PS4 for Persona 5 and Horizon next year since those are the only interesting PS4 games I've seen this gen. Might as well get the dumb expensive one. That is a really really stupid name though

Yeah, I'm pretty much sold on it. I have a 4K TV that's itching for content and €399 is just low enough to make it worthwhile. It sucks that it doesn't have a UHD Blu-ray player, but realistically that's probably not something I would've used; in fact, I don't think I've ever watched a Blu-ray movie on either my Xbox One or PS4.

I guess i need to google as I don't know enough about it yet. If i can take my current 1tb hdd with all my games and drop it into the new one no issue, then i will probalby trade the old one in for a new one. If not then i'll just stick to what i got and maybe get a scorpio at some point if it's affordable.

For me as a non-ps4 owner it sounds like an interesting deal. A 100€ premium for potentially better AA, framerate and "more graphics" sounds good enough even without the 4k/hdr stuff. Didn't seem to convincing though if you already own a ps4 and don't plan to buy both a new tv and psvr.

I just flat out don't believe that a $399 console will render 4K games natively. On PC you need a GTX 1070 to get 4K30 and that's $379+ by itself. Maybe if they render at 1440p and upscale like they do frequently from 900p to 1080p. We'll see I guess, but I'm not convinced at the moment.

Disappointed that we seem to be heading into more graphics just about at 30fps

All they needed to do was show witcher 3 , bloodborne, ds3, uncharted 4 at 60 and I would be upgrading

They made it pretty clear that the developers are ones that are going to be deciding how to make use of the extra processing power. Of course, all the specific examples they chose to share focused entirely on better visuals, but it stands to reason at least some developers will choose to improve the framerate as a priority over better visuals.

As someone who owns a PC but needs to buy a PS4 for Persona 5. This coming out before Persona 5 sold it to me pretty much regardless of anything else. I'm going to buy the newest shiniest version I can get.

@cameron: If it would be natively, i feel like they would be proud to say that word whenever they have the chance. I didn't hear 'natively' once, so i guess they're mostly going to upscale games.

@cameron said:

It definitely won't render most games at 3840x2160 natively, but it doesn't have to. I regularly play PC games on my TV at 2560x1440 and 3200x1800 and the difference from 1920x1080 is profound. It's especially noticeable in games with less than great post-processing AA solutions, which these days is a lot of console titles. If all the PS4 Pro does is allow developers to render their UI at 2160p with an internal resolution somewhere around 1440p while spitting out a HDR signal, I'll be more than happy.

@takayamasama: I think I'm in the same boat as you. Going into that conference I was super ready to be sold on it. But man, did they blow that. I'm really interested to see how Microsoft attempts to do it next year.

It's like VR for me, in the sense that I need to see it in public with my own eyes.

Honestly, maybe because I don't care, I'm not interested in the slightest. I already own a PS4 and the stuff shown will run just fine on my standard PS4.

I bought my HDTV back in 2009 and I'm hell bent on running it into the ground. That means no shiny new 4K display for me in the next few years. As such, I'm plenty happy with my current PS4 and have no intention of upgrading in the foreseeable future.

Would buy, but can't break my budget. Already spending $400 on PSVR, can't justify spending another $400. I do have a 4k TV, though i'll see what this firmware upgrade does for my current PS4.

I would like to buy a new DS4 though when those go on sale, my rubber nubs are starting to peel.

It just seems unnecessary, reactionary and forced. Why not just announce PS5 next year for a 2018 launch?

@darth_navster: it's gonna be a long wait, average life expectancy for lcd is about 11 years.

It 100% does not render games at native 4K. Mark Cerny's explanation of what the system does left little room to the imagination. It'll run games at various 1080+ resolutions and use upscaling techniques to output at 4K.

He flat out said that hardware that can "brute force" 4K resolution is too expensive, so they're using "streamlined rendering techniques" coupled "best in breed antialiasing algorithms" to allow games to come "impressively close to realizing the complete potential of 4K display."

They may not have said the exact words "these games are rendered at sub-4K resolutions and then upscaled" but they certainly expressed that idea clear enough if you pay attention to the specifics of what was said.

I was sold on it before but Sony did a helluva job dissuading me from getting one.

@renaldo_berkley: I'm super interested to see how MS handles Scorpio, and selling it to people. If they do it well I'd gladly upgrade to a Scorpio, since I feel like MS has made good, positive changes for the Xbox in the last year/year and a half, where I feel like Sony has only been riding the high they got at the very start of the generation, and everything they do after that seems to not be forward pushing, or actually kinda backtracking.

Times shall tell!

Sony sold me on a One S for my UHD needs. No way I can reliably stream 4k over wifi.

I'm potentially interested, but the reveal was terrible. 'It kinda sorta maybe does 4K' plus being some nebulous amount faster than a standard PS4 doesn't really tell you much. I hope the full spec. is released soon (until then, with HDR coming to 'old' consoles, it's difficult to see it as much more than 'We took a PS4 and overclocked it').

Yeeaa.. but I've been planning to buy this since it was leaked months ago. I've got a great 4k LG OLED TV (which I dont think supports HDR, but could be put in a firmware update if LG feels like it.. which I assume they won't)

UHD Blu-Ray player would've been nice but I expect the price would've gone to at least $500 and I would've been fine with that. I'd bet everyone else would've been having a crying hissyfit that it was $500.

Also funny to see people getting up-in-arms that the Xbox One S I guess plays UHD Blu-Rays and this PS4 Pro doesn't? .. difference here being Sony decided to put more powerful hardware in it instead of a updated drive.

@stordoff Full specs are already listed on Gamespot's article I believe

@takayamasama: I'm more or less confident that Scorpio is something that I definitely want, something I was never confident of with PS4 Pro. Now that Xbox has their whole games first marketing, I'm fairly certain they'll be able to easily sell me on the Scorpio. I wonder how hard they're going to hammer the power advantage the Scorpio has, since it was such a thorn in their side early on. And I do agree that Sony has felt sorta complacent over the past year or so. I think today's conference was the pinnacle of that so far.

Ah, that makes sense. I missed the first 15 minutes or so of the presentation. It's nonetheless disappointing that after that they said 4K a bunch since it won't actually be rendering at 4K. I'm sure the marketing will do a great job obfuscating that fact as well.

I will probably buy one because I have more money than sense right now, and I think that future games will probably run not great on the normal PS4 after the Neo comes out. I'm not excited about it, though, and if I were sticking to any kind of reasonable budget I would not buy it.

I'm probably going to get a Scorpio. The ps4 pro doesn't seem like a big enough jump I guess. No 4k bluray seems crazy to me, I still don't actually believe that can be true. Not a great first step for consoles getting into this weird blurred lines generation thing.

I was someone who didn't notice the difference between SDTV and HDTV for several years. I was someone who didn't upgrade from an iPhone 4 to an iPhone 5s until the 5s was free with my upgrade plan (and the 4 gained a significant crack that also damaged the headphone port). I am someone who currently cannot afford another $400 console, even if I sold my old one. I am not someone who owns a 4K TV or anything close to such a thing, nor am I someone who purchases blu-rays (let alone UHD blu-rays).

In short, the PS Neo really wasn't for me from the beginning, and while I haven't see the press conference, nothing I've read from the reactions and mini-write ups makes me feel differently. It's probably a really solid device; I love the PS4 as it is, so a beefier edition can only be a good thing. But not only can I not afford one, even if I could it would be a purely frivolous purchase given the state of the other hardware in my home it relies on to truly do its thing.

@mistzero: An electronic product with a lifespan longer than a presidential term? The horror!

No 4K Blu-ray player no sell for me. As someone who is big on physical media for movies, that was extremely disappointing. Before I read that it wasn't included I was totally ready to pre-order.

Show me the Digital Foundry framerate comparisons and I'll start to give a shit.

I don't understand the blu-ray thing. If the Xone S can do it it can't be THAT expensive can it?

Why the hell didn't they include a 4k Blu-Ray player? I remember people were running out to get a PS2 just to have a DVD player, and to a less extend the PS3 for a Blu-Ray player. It's like Sony doesn't want money; it can't be that expensive if the XboneS can do it?

@cameron: Its fully up to developers how they use the extra power Shadow of Mordor was shown 1080p with supersampling, nobody own's a 4K TV most will use the Pro as 1080p plus.

I play enough PS4 that I'll likely upgrade. It's worth the money to me. I'll have to see some graphics differences first but it won't take much difference to make it worth my while.

Sony have confirmed some of the specs in a press release. They seem to line up pretty much exactly with Austin's scoop, which means the CPU should be clocked at around 2.1 GHz per core — I think that basically kills the idea of wholesale conversion of games from 30 to 60 frames per second, so if you're planning on picking up a Pro for 60Hz Bloodborne or whatever you might want to reconsider. I guess it's possible that Sony have pulled an Xbox One and clocked the CPU even higher at the last minute, but I can't imagine they'd be able to push it so far beyond 2.1 GHz that it would make a practical difference.

I'm not buying a 4k tv any time soon, so this thing never did and possibly never will interest me.

I was always going to get a PS4 to go along with my XB1 so im sold on the Pro, i already own a 4K TV so makes sense to me.

It put me in the mood for a triple decker, but that's about it.

If I get a 4k TV in the next year or two, I'm sure I'll get a Pro.

It's an interesting time for console competition. Sony is pushing forward with VR in a big way, while MS stands there with their hands in their pockets. The flip side of that coin is that MS is likely going to be first to the market with a significant hardware upgrade, while Sony does seem to be offering very much here.

PS4 Neo Pro feels like a half-measure solution that may eventually upset customers when they're either

1) Being asked to buy a more powerful PS4 Pro, so Sony can keep up with MS's Scorpio.

or

2) Stuck with a "Pro" console that's considerably less powerful than Microsoft's new console.