PS4 Pro Speculation (PS4K NEO Kaio-Ken-Kutaragi-Kaz Neo-san)

[Prophecy2k]

So in your model you buy a PS4.5 for $400 and it's good for three to four years before becoming obsolete? And that's the best way? Sounds like a shit deal. That would be my biggest worry about buying this thing.

Forwards compatibility is not the devil. It means you get to keep all of your games from one system to the next, instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Well most gamers would have bought a PS4 and will have owned it for 6 to 7 years before PS5 comes along. So no different from what gamers are used to. Those who buy a PS4k now, upgrading from a PS4 will upgrade from PS4k to PS5 in three years. It's not much different. They'll still play all their old games on PS5, but now they'll be playing PS5 games built for the ground up for the new HW.

If you're a consumer without a PS4 and you buy a PS4k now, then 3 to 4 years down the line PS5 comes out then that's again no different to those gamers who bought late into previous generations to find their console made obsolete in the fullness of time.

I'm not saying I want PS5 to be a fresh start with no BC or FC. But I do want PS5 to be a fresh start with BC, so that I can play my old games, but without FC, meaning that I'm actually incentivised to upgrade in order to actually play new PS5 games.

If FC becomes a thing, Jaguar cores are gonna be holding back games development for at least a decade or two to come.

 

[Scott_Arm]

@Prophecy2k So if I'm a consumer that doesn't have a PS4, but I go out and buy a $400 PS4.5 at launch and then PS5 comes along three years later, and I can't run PS5 games on my PS4.5, do you think that's good value as a consumer? That's why I think it's likely they'll have forwards compatibility.

 

[eastmen]

Yep, all the way to 2018...........

It depends on what you buy. The radeon r9 290x was released sept 30th 2013 which is before the consoles. Its still an extremely fast card that will play anything you want including VR.

This isn't the late 90s/00s where you would buy a new card with massive performance increases every year. If your smart with what you buy , it will last you 2-3 years easily.

 

[chris1515]

Just a Fury X is about twice the price of an entire PS4. Then you need to add all the other junk needed to build a PC. What kind of bollocks reasoning is this?

Yes, something costing a LOT more money ends up being faster! Gee whiz, imagine that! Regular Einstein you are...

Like I said you can keep it for a very long time. I think soon sub 1080p game will be common on PS4. PS5 will be 8 to 9 Tflops in 2019 a high end GPU card will probably be 16 to 18 Tflops on AMD side next year.

PC games are cheaper and no PS + to pay.
You don't even need to buy the top of the line CPU.

I want to have better or equivalent to the best PS experience available...

I am not a PC master race...

 

[chris1515]

Even with trade in program have the best PS experience available will be more expensive now with a new model every three years .

And every PS4 model value will go down faster...

 

[3dilettante]

I hate Sony mandating resolutions. I'd much rather a massive amount of stuff on screen or higher framerate than an arbitrary 1080p resolution with reduced performance.

The rumors indicate there would be a mandate that games support the standard PS4. It buys the standard PS4 the option to drop below 1080p rather than 720p. A game that runs acceptably on the Neo at 720p is going to risk leaving some unacceptable quality sacrifices on the table for Orbis.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

It would only be a niche until it isn't. I don't expect the ps4 to exist much longer than another 2 years or so. People will start making games only for the ps4k and they will target the extra ram to give them a graphical advantage over the other titles.

If by people you mean devs and publishers, they will make games for platforms which have a large market share. Even assuming Sony changed their ruleset to allow PS4 Neo-only games (which is a huge ask), and PS4 Neo sells as many units as the base PS4 has from launch (so PS4 base and PS4 Neo units sold are 50:50 - an even bigger ask) what developer/publisher is going to consciously decide to target only half of the PS4 market and therefore limit their sales potential?

 

[Metal_Spirit]

The rumors indicate there would be a mandate that games support the standard PS4. It buys the standard PS4 the option to drop below 1080p rather than 720p. A game that runs acceptably on the Neo at 720p is going to risk leaving some unacceptable quality sacrifices on the table for Orbis.

You are seeing it wrong.
According to the released rumour, Sony plans are to always see the Neo as a secundary console. As such that game you are refering would never meet the standards for the PS4, so it would never would be created.
The NEO specs prove it. The CPU is almost the same, only the GPU changes. The idea is to offer more FPS first, resolution second, and gfx improvements third, if any power is available. Not to run games the PS4 cannot run!

 

[3dilettante]

You are seeing it wrong.
According to the released rumour, Sony plans are to always see the Neo as a secundary console. As such that game you are refering would never meet the standards for the PS4, so it would never would be created.

Which would be consistent with the story's claim that games running in Neo mode have a mandated minimum of 1080p.
If it could only ever lead to breaking the requirement that a game runs acceptably on the standard PS4, Sony has little motivation to let the option exist.

 

[MrFox]

I am not a PC master race...

Depends on your priorities. Why did you buy a PS4? What changed if there's a higher power SKU but all games are mandated to support PS4?

I have a PC with a 780, but I am a filthy peasant who wants to play Ratchet and Clank, and Uncharted 4 and Horizon, and I'm a big fan of Gran Turismo. Personally I'm getting the best of both worlds if they come out with this mid-gen product. I end up with zero reason to upgrade my PC, which I upgrade every 4 years for about $1000 every time.

My worry is the damage this can do to the current user base if there is any performance issues with some PS4 games. Forums will be filled with anger that PS4K is the new target and PS4 is obsolete. That is obviously not true if we follow the rumors, but Sony's reputation will take a hit anyway. They will need a very very good sales pitch when they unveil this (currently non-existent, rumored) thing.

Just like Sony did with the PSVR mandating frame rate stability, they will have to set more aggressive TRCs on PS4 to avoid the clusterfuck. Their reputation of supporting a platform for 10 years is among the reasons many bought a PS4 at launch. The impact wouldn't be immediate, it would be at the PS5 launch. They must prove their 10 years support still holds true, despite the mid-gen product.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

My worry is the damage this can do to the current user base if there is any performance issues with some PS4 games. Forums will be filled with anger that PS4K is the new target and PS4 is obsolete.

I think the bigger risk for Sony is third parties barely making any effort for Neo versions of games and PS4 Neo customers feeling discontent with having bought a more powerful consoles with few games taking advantage of the extra hardware. This is way, way more likely than developers just stopping targeting the device with the 30+ million install base.

 

[Metal_Spirit]

Which would be consistent with the story's claim that games running in Neo mode have a mandated minimum of 1080p.
If it could only ever lead to breaking the requirement that a game runs acceptably on the standard PS4, Sony has little motivation to let the option exist.

First priority is framerate. So a game at 900p 30 fps would need to reach 1080p 60 fps on Neo. This is how I see it according to the fps first claims and the 1080p minimum!
Beside if the CPU is bottlenecking the game, NEO will not be much superior.
At first I saw Neo as a threat to the current user base. Now... I'm not so shure! Its just a better performance console, but not a replacement, and the base will still be Ps4. If Ps4 cannot handle it, it would not do so even if Neo was not avaible.

 

[London Geezer]

This thread, and I can imagine countless other discussions all over the world, proves how important it is that Sony get their messaging absolutely, 100000% right, clear and correct.

Will they? Won't they?

I think the success of the PS4K will be 95% based on how Sony are able to present it to everyone. Here's hoping they get it right, cause right now this is quite messy. I get it, but a lot of gamers really don't.

Good luck Sony

 

[Osamar]

In case this rumor is true, just remember Sega X32.

 

[chris1515]

Depends on your priorities. Why did you buy a PS4? What changed if there's a higher power SKU but all games are mandated to support PS4?

I have a PC with a 780, but I am a filthy peasant who wants to play Ratchet and Clank, and Uncharted 4 and Horizon, and I'm a big fan of Gran Turismo. Personally I'm getting the best of both worlds if they come out with this mid-gen product. I end up with zero reason to upgrade my PC, which I upgrade every 4 years for about $1000 every time.

My worry is the damage this can do to the current user base if there is any performance issues with some PS4 games. Forums will be filled with anger that PS4K is the new target and PS4 is obsolete. That is obviously not true if we follow the rumors, but Sony's reputation will take a hit anyway. They will need a very very good sales pitch when they unveil this (currently non-existent, rumored) thing.

Just like Sony did with the PSVR mandating frame rate stability, they will have to set more aggressive TRCs on PS4 to avoid the clusterfuck. Their reputation of supporting a platform for 10 years is among the reasons many bought a PS4 at launch. The impact wouldn't be immediate, it would be at the PS5 launch. They must prove their 10 years support still holds true, despite the mid-gen product.

Sony lost my trust. I think soon the NEO will be a good justification to poor PS4 experience.

My last PC games was... Magic Carpet and I was a happy console gamer for years but I think it is time to change again...

 

[MrFox]

Sony lost my trust. I think soon the NEO will be a good justification to poor PS4 experience.

What did Sony do? Exactly?

 

[chris1515]

What did Sony do? Exactly?

Sony prepare the PS Neo relase. I think last gen was too long and a 2018 or 2019 PS5 would have been a good idea.

 

[bunge]

Is there enough hardware overlap that making a PS4K is a manufacturing cost savings? As in, the new parts are cheaper than the old to produce so "we might as well" create a bumped up machine?

 

[MrFox]

Sony prepare the PS Neo relase. I think last gen was too long and a 2018 or 2019 PS5 would have been a good idea.

What are you losing compared to no PS4.5 existing?

(also, it's not a gen)

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Is there enough hardware overlap that making a PS4K is a manufacturing cost savings? As in, the new parts are cheaper than the old to produce so "we might as well" create a bumped up machine?

They can probably re-use most of the chassis so it's own to the base silicon costs. Potentially more APUs per wafer but more expensive wafers. This may never leak.