The PS4 Pro Is Missing A 4K-BD Player - Does That Affect Your Purchasing Decision?

I wonder if people know how much data Netflix Ultra HD uses (spoiler, it's a lot). Any type of a bandwidth cap, and with out a 4k blu-ray, you're kind of boned for 4k media. I mean, the Xbox One S has a 4k blu-ray drive.

@l4wd0g: Oh it's an absolute fuckton. Netflix recommends a 25Mbit line for consistent 4K video performance. The average user streams two hours a day, so you are talking 675GB a month. If you have a data cap...yikes.

I live in Australia which means due to poor interenet I'm unlikely to be streaming 1080p video quality on the best of days.

That means the only way I'll be able to experience 4K content is physical media.

Making the PS4 Pro completely obsolete for 4K content.

I have no intention of purchasing a PS4 pro or a 4K TV at this moment in time.

@l4wd0g: Yeah I'm with you. Physical media is obviously aging out but this is one area where it is still very justifiable.

It makes no difference to me I don't plan on buying any 4K Blu-rays. Stream only.

Given the right circumstances I plan on getting a 4k tv sometime in the next 12 months, and while the missing UHD bluray player won't get me to not get the PRO (I'll probably put down a preorder at Gamestop on Friday) I am extremely disappointed it isn't included. It is just one of those things where for the past decade I've always been able to rely on Sony to get me the latest in content formats w/in a fairly quick timeline of them becoming "mainstream" (sometimes even before). The PS gave me CDs, the PS2 DVDs, and the PS3 gave me my first bluray player. So at this point I'm probably looking at a 5-6 year (minimum) wait until I can get UHD content with I assume the next PS (PS5?). And with internet being what it is in the US I highly doubt I'll be doing any 4k streams anytime in the near decade.

I haven't purchased a new TV since I bought a 480p compatible CRT years and years and years ago. I've had a TV gifted to me by my father that does 720p and I think everything on there is gorgeous, but for comparison I played Mass Effect 2 twice through on that CRT (which was also about 22" compared to my current 50" LED) and also thought that was gorgeous. After watching that press conference I was actually very relieved, rather than let down, to hear so many caveats about this system's performance enhancements. I feel absolutely no pressure to get the system now. What worries me is when the next cycle of systems comes around, will there be decent, large 4KTVs that I can buy alongside the console without spending more than $1,000? I've never made a purchase over $1,000 before, though I did foolishly spend about that much per month on an apartment a couple years ago. That's a big ask to me, and I could very well just cross my fingers that the lifespan of an OG PS4 is something like 12 years.

@nodima:You can get some pretty good 4K TVs right now for under $1,000, like this Sony or this Vizio. There's also a huge pile of them for $500-$800, some better than others, but it's pretty safe to say that you could probably get a good one for around $600 next year and have $400 in your pocket for a console.

I'm not buying a new TV in the next year, but maybe in 2018. If I did have a 4K TV right now, the lack of a UHD Blu-Ray player would absolutely effect my decision.

Seems a little odd that so many people are put off by this, I haven't witnessed HDR 4k but regular 4k makes little difference to 1080p in film IMO. I barely buy blurays as it is and UHD players cost as much as consoles so i'm really surprised xbox took such a loss putting it in the one-S. I guess if people are on the fence about 4k tvs they probably want to know they can buy dvds that take advantage of it I guess, but i got 4k for future gaming tbh.

My purchase all depends on how much i can get for my ps4 as a trade in towards the new one, and if they pull that out of stock bullshit again i'll probably just pass all together.

Considering I watch most movies streaming these days, it's completely irrelevant to me. And by the time I have a 4K set in the living room and not only in my gaming room, UHD players will be as cheap as Blu-Ray players are today, so it's not really an issue either way I slice it. But realistically, my main thing is just my lack of physical media in regards to film. I just don't care as much as I used to about that.

For me, it only boils down to; do I have a 4k set and will my games look nice. Anything else is beside the point because I don't buy game consoles for their ability to play movies.

Bluray was a blip on the radar compared to DVD. UHD will be a whisper of a blip. Sure, streaming is not perfect right now. But film & tv, more than any other mediums, are going way hard in the paint on streaming, and this really shows no signs of letting up.

In 3-5 years, when me and Gen Pop start thinking about 4K TVs, there will probably be a PS4 Pro+ to satisfy this need, or some more-affordable UHD option.

I just got a 4K TV about two months ago and was really hoping the pro would be my cheaper answer to the 4K player. The fact that it doesn't have one shoots that in the butt. What a drag.

I don't want an Xbox One S as I already have an Xbox One and Scorpio is only a year away.

I guess I just have to wait on a 4K Ultra blu ray player.

Vanilla Xbox One and PS4 will just have to do for another year.

I don't have a 4k TV yet, but if I did it absolutely would affect my decision. I have the best internet in my suburban area. Speedtest says it's 22ish down, but I often can't even stream 1080p video (and it has a data cap), so there's no way in hell I could possibly stream 4k. I think it's shortsighted as hell for Sony, a company who, in the past, has seemed to favor including new technology and future-proofing. The only reason I can see for them leaving it out is that they want to sell a PS4 Pro+ in another two years that includes UHD Blu-ray support and that this was a way to keep production costs down in the meantime.

I think the 'YOU WEREN'T GOING TO BUY PHYSICAL MEDIA ANYWAY LOL' hand-waving argument is pretty myopic as well; the people who care enough about visual fidelity to buy a 4k TV are precisely the people who care about visual fidelity enough to prefer physical media over streaming.

I don't think it is aging out. As I said in the other thread, Netflix and Hulu can't afford all the movies that are out there. I'd be severely limited in the variety of movies I could watch if I limited myself to Netflix. Their library is far from comprehensive and they regularly lose licenses. These companies will be relying on physical sales for a very, very, very long time. I always find it funny when people ask me if it's on Netflix, as if it's comprehensive.

Nerp, I don't really watch shows on TV anyways, just stream to my iPad when I'm cooking and shit. I'm mostly just waiting to see what the performance differences end up being for games I care about.

Poll choices are kind of weird but I will say that even though I don't think it's not all that important in a usability sense it's a massive mistake to not include the 4K BD player.

Sony could have had complete performance and spec dominance for another year. And now they don't. It's a big PR loss.

I think it's kind of bizarre, really. Sony is the Blu-ray company, right? And they're positioning PS4 Pro as a 4K console, yet it doesn't support this? I mean, I doubt they'll lose many sales over this, but what must those meetings have been like? Someone there must have realized how this would look, right?

Then again, even if I did buy a PS4 Pro, I don't have the money for a 4K TV, so I wouldn't be buying any of those 4K Blu-rays anyway.

This is a good point, but it's also inaccurate to assume you will find those movies on UHD, isn't it?

A great example is the Criterion Collection, which has a massive slate of incredible movies that can be very hard to find. While the CC is (partially) streamable through some apps in some countries, my example isn't really about that. Consider instead what tiny fraction of their library they converted from DVD to Blu-ray. Then consider what tiny fraction they will convert to UHD.

DVD and VHS are likely to remain where you get the "hard to find stuff" I think.

@ezekiel: That may be so, but the convenience of streaming (whether it's subscription-based or digitally purchased) is so great and so alluring that most people active in technology consumption don't think about or even handle discs anymore. "Is it available on Netflix?" often means, "Will I watch it?" I agree with you: discs are good, and aren't going anywhere yet. But, there's no denying that discs are increasingly an enthusiast product.

However, the PS4 Pro is a luxury, top-of-the-line product, and whether or not most people would use a 4K BR drive, I think a lot of people expect it to be capable of that given its proposed position in the hierarchy of a high-end home theater. I know I did.

You guys are both right overall but I am just speaking to a growing trend of people getting rid of their physical media and moving all to streaming, even if they give up some hard to find stuff. It will not go away entirely and I know others have different experiences.

A lot of people only speak to their own experience and think if you have any physical media you are a nut or something. That's not me at all. And I just think this 4K Blu Ray example is particularly strong because the data usage is insane. People can have varying internet in the US, but speaking for myself and those I know, they do not have the speed of internet capable to stream 4K. So I just think it's very understandable. I'm not sure some of those who are saying "who cares about physical media in 2016!?" get what 4K streaming really entails.

It also is worrying to me as far as data caps, which I have not had to deal with but if people start streaming 4K Netflix all day I could see them becoming a big thing across the US.

I wasn't trying to infer that most of those movies would make it to 4K anytime soon. The overpriced Criterion Collection convinced me to subscribe to Netflix DVD (with Blu-ray), although I rent other movies too. I disagree about Criterion's Blu-ray library being small. I find their selection of Blu-rays pretty substantial.

I've given up on disc collecting. Going to digital downloads from here on out.

@hassun said:

Why are they weird? The goal of this thread was to figure out if the lack of a UHD Blu-Ray player has any influence on your purchasing decision (two options, it's made you not want it, or it hasn't changed your mind), and what role owning a 4K TV has in that (three options, own/plan on it/don't). When you remove the one that wouldn't make much sense (Don't have a 4K TV but won't buy a PS4 Pro because its lacking the player), you get down to five.

Help me out: how could I have made it clearer?

@ezekiel: hrm? CC Blu-ray library is small? I did not say that.. Just that it is much smaller than the DVD library. Thus, I expect their UHD library to be even smaller. If you were not talking at all about UHD, well I am sorry duder, and got confused since that is what this thread is about. And in that case, I guess you have nothing to worry about, since, as far as we know, the PSPro will play DVD and Bluray.

@artisanbreads: I wonder why I didn't get this in my notifications? God knows what else I've missed! :|

In any case...

Streaming is a huge concern. Word. Frankly, I just don't know where to start that conversation. Too many variables. What will streaming be like in another 1-2 years? It hurts my brain to fathom the change. We're just now getting fibre installed in my city, but who knows when that will be affordable. We don't have data caps, but, again, I have no idea what to expect of the future. Obviously this all is different in my city, your city, my country, your country... the variables are exhausting to consider.

To sum my feelings, which are just feelings...

• I am not bothered at the lack of a UHD drive
• the lack of a UHD drive will not hugely affect the sales of the PS Pro
• the lack of a UHD drive is a surprising omission
• I like physical media for all mediums
• I doubt most people will have 4K TVs in the next year or two
• By the time the average front-line consumer is on-board with 4K TVs, 4K streaming will be more viable (1-2 years from now)
• By the time most people are on-board with 4K TVs, 4K streaming will be easy (5+ years)
• I feel the omission of the UHD drive is a vote of no-confidence in that media format right now. I full expect 2018-9s PS4 to have a UHD drive
• The Scorpio has a UHD drive, but comes out 1+ year from now. I feel this time difference is really very significant. If the PSPro was coming out next year and still did not have a UHD drive, that would be much stranger to me.

@mirado:

Well the question is "Does That Affect Your Purchasing Decision?"

The options you provided are "My decision has not changed" and "I will not buy it". It's weird to juxtapose those two unless your starting point is something like "to everyone who was planning to buy a PS4 Neo/Pro".

@hassun: Well, it's not like "I wasn't going to buy the PS4 Pro before, but I will now because it's missing the drive" makes much sense, right? You are either still buying/not buying it regardless, or the lacking feature is enough of a negative to stop you. For the people who aren't interested in it at all, I can still get data on whether or not they plan on owning a 4K TV. Perhaps I could have broken that out into two additional options and just make the others purely about the topic at hand, but I don't like multiple choice polls on this forum. Gets too messy.

I think some people will hate it. Its funny how people say the disc based media is disappearing, streaming is the way to go now. Yet once you take it away from them, its like its the end of the world.

I don't think they left it out by accident. Sony proper wouldn't have let them. The difference in Sony and Microsofts thinking (IMO) is Sony probably has a lot more information on the forecast on the growth of the Ultra Blu-Ray. Not to mention when people finally start buying 4k TVs in large numbers, the 4k streaming will get a lot better. Not to mention nearly all TVs have netflix, amazon, hulu, ect in the TVs, requiring less and less need for a external piece of hardware for media.

While it would probably be nice to have a 4K-Blu-Ray option, It could very well just be a cost not worth it in the end to spend resources on a piece of hardware that might not have a long lasting appeal.

@mirado: Of course one of the possible (and imo the only even remotely logical) explanations for not having the drive is keeping the console price under $400...

Why would I care about discs?

An equally valid question: Why would I care about 4k?

I'm sure these things are important to somebody, but for myself, and probably the average consumer, it just doesn't matter.

Just saw this on the PS Blog Sony doesn't seem to have much faith in 4k media.

PS Blog PS4 Pro: The Ultimate FAQ

Q: Will there be any 4K PlayStation Store movies or TV shows?

There are no plans for this at PS4 Pro’s launch, but the PlayStation Network team is looking into it.

As a Generation-X person you probably expect I like to collect game tapes, and vinyl records and I keep thousands of CDs in cases. But I don't. I find it easier to stream stuff and all the disc media I had is going away - I don't give a damn.

4K BlueRay? That's a thing, really? Well, not for me, because I cannot even work up the indifference to shake my fist at it. Hell, if they were to add something to the PS4 Pro that I woudl care about it would be a M.2 slot and a fatter pipe to move data to the CPU/GPU/RAM.

But, listen to me on this, I'm glad they are not adding other stuff onto Pro. The reason Pro even has a chance is Sony wants to sell it at $399. That price is their key to success with anything they do, that price is the key factor.

It's odd that Sony did not include 4K BluRay support in their flagship console when Xbox One S has it for cheaper. I'm not terribly interested in 4K BluRay - mostly because I don't have space for the cases, I don't like spending $30 per movie, and I'm trying to pivot away from physical media - so this doesn't really affect my interest in the PS4Pro. The price point is compelling and the features it supplies are interesting, especially for me since I'm looking to get a 4K TV by the end of the year.

You're missing out on some of the best movies ever made. Movies that are only licensed on disc.

@hassun: Very, very true; cost is often the most important factor and that will override all other features, missing or included. The only thing I find odd about the whole situation is the cost of the drive itself; allegedly, Microsoft only spent $15.50 more to include the UHD drive ($33.50 vs $18 for a standard). Now, that's just the cost of the drive itself, and even if that really is the total amount to support UHD (so we're throwing out any additional costs, including extra man-hours, software, licencing, etc), multiplying that across potentially millions of PS4 Pros can start to add up, but the fact remains that it's not like the system cost would have ballooned by a massive (say, $100) amount to include it.

I guess the real question is whether or not saving $X amount (from $15.50 to whatever) by leaving the drive out of it is worth the negative PR and potential of lost sales, however meager. Sony is betting they are correct, or that it won't matter. It very well may not.

@mirado: I also think it can't be that expensive to put in the new drive. It still seems like a big misstep to me. Even if it doesn't have much practical impact for the user (and I don't think it will). Something like this is what you do just to deny your competitor any sort of marketing advantage. Full technical superiority for at least another year and most likely a massive price advantage vs the Scorpio when that launches.

But now Sony has given Microsoft a very handy marketing bullet point which it will continue to have for multiple years to come.

I'm pretty much done with physical movies. It just isn't worth the trouble of what you're getting. Streaming looks fine, is way cheaper, and more user friendly.

When people first started talking about 4k Blu rays it seemed like the goal was to have them play on standard Blu ray players with an update. Guess they threw that whole idea out the window, along with my enthusiasm for physical media. At this point they should start selling movies on USB keys if they don't want to piss off retailers. It's not like disc drm keeps the pirates at bay anyway.

No.

While it's theoretically the best option for getting pure 4K content, I just can't see myself collecting discs anymore.

Personally, I'll get into 4k when the projectors get cheaper. I'm so used to watching movies on a 200" screen. Don't really watch much TV but most of my other daily viewing is on my phone or tablet. The living room TV is used almost exclusively for kids shows off Netflix. I barely touch the xb1 or ps4 and game primarily on PC at 2560x1440 which is perfectly fine for now. I do use the bedroom TV for my steam link but rarely. By the time I get anything 4k it will be much cheaper and readily available.

TLDR, No it doesn't bother me and no I won't be picking one up.

I don't watch movies and don't use Netflix. If I'm ever going to buy a PS4 it's because I want to play something that's exclusive to the platform.

Until people started talking about the PS4 Pro not playing them I wasn't even aware you could buy 4K Bluray movies

@darkshaper: Amazon.

It makes me even less likely to get it, but I wasn't planning to anyway.

not ready for the investment of all the 4k stuff

The thing that bothers me is that Sony would respond (has?) to the criticism with either "Netflix and Youtube will be first among many to provide 4K streaming services" or with "we're focusing on games".

The former is stupid because not only does it require, according to Netflix, a 25Mbps internet connection for consistent 4K streaming. The worldwide average is well beyond that (around 5Mbps) and only South Korea's average clears that demand, but just barely. And don't get me started on data caps. 4K streaming would chew through your bandwidth at a rate you couldn't imagine. Finally, while not as noticeable to some, the image quality difference betweem streaming and physical media is well documented.

As for the "focusing on games" thing, while there could probably be quite a few snide remarks to be made and comparisons to the less capable yet cheaper Xbox One S, which does offer UHD-BD playback, it's simply not a smart move. The PS2's DVD playing capability was a huge selling point for the console and helped the format. Same goes for the PS3 and Blu-ray (even though it didn't sell quite as well).

With all that said, yes, I am going to get one nonetheless, but I'm seriously disappointed that I'm going to have to spend another couple hundred dollars to get a machine that can do this simple task.

I like when a console has the ability to play the most current movie format. Seems like an odd choice by Sony. Doesn't affect my decision as I wasn't planning on getting one anyway.

At this point I'm going to wait and see what Scorpio has to offer next year. Already have a ps4 and og xbone and these new 4K capable systems don't really offer me anything yet as I don't own a 4K tv, nor do I plan on purchasing one anytime soon.

HDR is neat and all, but if I'm going to plop down a bunch of money on a new system there needs to be some sort of wow factor for me. If consoles are going the route of smartphone cycles, this for me would be like upgrading my iPhone 6s for a 7. No need or want.

@hassun said:

We seem to be using the same brand of crystal ball, because Microsoft is already firing that UHD Blu-Ray ammunition:

Penello pointed out that the Xbox One S is a more feature-complete system in some ways than even the just-announced PlayStation 4 Pro, to say nothing of the PlayStation 4 Slim that Sony also officially announced today. Other prominent Xbox employees expressed similar opinions on Twitter, including Aaron Greenberg, head of games marketing. Xbox representatives were quick to point out the absence of a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray drive in the PlayStation 4 Pro.

I was listening to a bombast from April when the developer guidelines hit and the subject of the disc drive came up. @jeff mentioned it's a whole lot easier to enforce parity between systems if they both have the same drive.

That's the smart move.

Marked "not changed" in the poll, but that's because I already wasn't going to get one. As a current Xbox One owner with a big gaming PC spend being the next priority, by the time I'm thinking about getting a PS4 (maybe next year?) I think I might actually track down an original model, because I think the Slim and the Pro are pretty damned ugly. It's a shame, they had the prettiest console at launch, but now...

@mirado: The Blu-Ray drive is easy ammo but the whole thing with talking up the Scorpio is just stupid.

1. It's not out and won't be out for another year.
2. What will the price actually be?