Middle Generation Console Upgrade Discussion [Scorpio, 4Pro]

[Metal_Spirit]

I'm not talking new buyers. If you have a PS4 already, to sell it and get a 4Pro will probably set you back around $150. That's to get a 2x more powerful console which won't translate into a huge difference on screen probably. So $150+ for a marginal improvement over what you already have, or $150 on something else? Like towards PSVR.

Set you back around 150?? That would mean a used PS4 sale for 250 euros. I would say it would cost more!

The new Slim costs 299 euros, with a 2 years warranty.

And here in Portugal, unless you manage to sell it so someone you know for a bit more, the price stores will give you for your used PS4 is 180 euros (not shure if it isn´t less at the moment since 180 was the price before the introduction of the slim).

So... 399-180 it would be about 220 euros! 70 more than the 150 you refer!

You are expecting a 250 euros/dolars sale when we have brand new and with warranty and bundled games PS4s at 299.
And those are the Slim! Expect the old console to be sold at the same price with huge, huge bundles to end stocks.

I believe you are beeing too optimistic about the cost!

 

[davygee]

You will get £130-£150 for a 2nd hand PS4 500GB, so would need to top up £200 minimum to get the Pro.

The deals you can get for a PS4 at the moment are brilliant. Even Argos are doing a 500Gb PS4 with NMS and U4 along with a rocker gaming chair for £280 so thats only £30 more expensive than the PS4 RRP now. I fully expect these deals to be common practice. So trade in value of the PS4 will be going down quickly.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Set you back around 150??...I believe you are beeing too optimistic about the cost!

My argument is that it costs too much. The $150 is the optimistic, best case scenario, hence I used $150+. That does also factor in cost difference in a couple of a years though as well after a PS4Pro price drop. But yeah, it's an expensive choice for very little gain, so I doubt the value is there for the majority of PS4 owners.

 

[goonergaz]

I'm not talking new buyers. If you have a PS4 already, to sell it and get a 4Pro will probably set you back around $150. That's to get a 2x more powerful console which won't translate into a huge difference on screen probably. So $150+ for a marginal improvement over what you already have, or $150 on something else? Like towards PSVR.

You mentioned 'this holiday' - which is when the Pro launches, I doubt very few who might 'at some point' upgrade will be buying the slim. I also have no idea why you think it will drop $50 in price...I'm totally confused about your post. Also we don't fully know the benefits on a 1080p screen, I thought the game with the slider showed that 1080p will get a nice upgrade - but that's obviously down to devs. I'm torn on a new TV, I was literally buying one but thought I better get approval first - however I've started doubting myself. I'd really like to see HDR but I think overall I'd rather 1080p with bells and whistles....argh!

 

[Michellstar]

You mentioned 'this holiday' - which is when the Pro launches, I doubt very few who might 'at some point' upgrade will be buying the slim. I also have no idea why you think it will drop $50 in price...I'm totally confused about your post. Also we don't fully know the benefits on a 1080p screen, I thought the game with the slider showed that 1080p will get a nice upgrade - but that's obviously down to devs. I'm torn on a new TV, I was literally buying one but thought I better get approval first - however I've started doubting myself. I'd really like to see HDR but I think overall I'd rather 1080p with bells and whistles....argh!

Bad timing, wait for the 2nd or 3rd gen of UHD tvs

 

[goonergaz]

You will get £130-£150 for a 2nd hand PS4 500GB, so would need to top up £200 minimum to get the Pro.

The deals you can get for a PS4 at the moment are brilliant. Even Argos are doing a 500Gb PS4 with NMS and U4 along with a rocker gaming chair for £280 so thats only £30 more expensive than the PS4 RRP now. I fully expect these deals to be common practice. So trade in value of the PS4 will be going down quickly.

You'll get at least £150 in the 2nd hand market - so £200 upgrade - FWIW game are doing and upgrade to slim for PS4 £130 and believe me, there will be takers, so £200 to get to Pro is 'just' £70 extra

 

[goonergaz]

Bad timing, wait for the 2nd or 3rd gen of UHD tvs

Yeah, I was looking at ~£1k ona 58" Panasonic DX750 (which is being used by DF apparently) - seems a nice upgrade from my current TV (LG 50PS6000) - problem is I see the HDR and 4K and think I (will) have the XBO slim & Pro and am not getting the best from them!

 

[davygee]

You'll get at least £150 in the 2nd hand market - so £200 upgrade - FWIW game are doing and upgrade to slim for PS4 £130 and believe me, there will be takers, so £200 to get to Pro is 'just' £70 extra

I would seriously doubt you would get more than £150 in the 2nd hand market for the 500Gb alone. Especially considering you will be able to pick up a PS4 Slim for near £200 the closer you get to Xmas. Although even at that if there is people out there that are considering an upgrade, they may get a decent deal via Game or something like you said.

Don't get me wrong, I think there will be loads of PS4's being sold from now until Xmas and when Pro hits in November I'm sure we will see loads of them being sold for Xmas.

I think we will see something in the region of 12m PS4's in total being sold from September to end of December WW, but that's just a guess.

 

[AzBat]

We'll revisit this in a couple of years and one of us will get to gloat. I don't think the people buying a Slim now for $299, $250 this Holiday season, and cheaper in future, are interested in marginally better visuals for a significant upgrade cost. The people (IMHO) interested in 4Pro are those who bought the consoles at the highest price early on and demonstrably want the best console experience which is why the paid a premium for it in 2013/2014 and may pay a premium for it 2016/2017/2018.

Sounds good. We're probably both wrong. LOL I do agree with you that the $250 & $300 customers will not see much value in springing for an extra $100-$150 for the Pro. It's those $350-$400 PS4 customers that I think will bite. Especially if they have any plans to buy PSVR.

I think many of the early adopters will be up for an upgrade, those who think Pro may be quieter and of course new customers can get 2x the power for a reasonable upgarde

Agreed.

Tommy McClain

 

[davygee]

Yeah, I was looking at ~£1k ona 58" Panasonic DX750 (which is being used by DF apparently) - seems a nice upgrade from my current TV (LG 50PS6000) - problem is I see the HDR and 4K and think I (will) have the XBO slim & Pro and am not getting the best from them!

That looks lke a nice TV and a good size, although is there a standardised HDR format yet. I know there is going to be some standardisation of it soon, but may not appear until next year. The last thing you want is to buy a TV at £1k and it doesn't meet the requirements for it.

I personally won't be upgrading to 4K anytime soon, although ask me the same next year and I may feel differently.

 

[goonergaz]

I would seriously doubt you would get more than £150 in the 2nd hand market for the 500Gb alone. Especially considering you will be able to pick up a PS4 Slim for near £200 the closer you get to Xmas. Although even at that if there is people out there that are considering an upgrade, they may get a decent deal via Game or something like you said.

Don't get me wrong, I think there will be loads of PS4's being sold from now until Xmas and when Pro hits in November I'm sure we will see loads of them being sold for Xmas.

I think we will see something in the region of 12m PS4's in total being sold from September to end of December WW, but that's just a guess.

You can get £130 cash at CEX or if you want to trade in you can get over £160 at Game. I think you could achieve £150 today but of course that will drop soon. Not quite sure why you think the slim will be dropping price before Christmas? I would suggest once the Pro is out you could likely throw in a few titles you don't play and sell a bundle for £150 - for £200 you get double power, warranty and a quieter machine (it has to be surely!?). I guess time will tell.

 

[turkey]

That looks lke a nice TV and a good size, although is there a standardised HDR format yet. .

HDR10 is mandatory for uhd premium compliance I believe and the only hdr supported by the pro or the s.

Dolby vision is optional (for uhd) and require extra hardware on the devices so won't be a software upgrade.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You mentioned 'this holiday' - which is when the Pro launches, I doubt very few who might 'at some point' upgrade will be buying the slim. I also have no idea why you think it will drop $50 in price...I'm totally confused about your post.

Sorry if my point got muddled. I'll clarify, for a reference when everyone points me out for being wrong in 2018/19.

Also we don't fully know the benefits on a 1080p screen, I thought the game with the slider showed that 1080p will get a nice upgrade - but that's obviously down to devs!

The difference must be pretty limited. The GPU is getting an upgrade but the rest of the system isn't, meaning bottlenecks all over the shop. Unless everything can be move to non-memory consuming data processing, there's only so much more CU can give us.

For new buyers (non-PS4 owners)
4Pro represents reasonable value as not too high a premium. However, I see little reason to think that people who have waited for the consoles to drop in price to $300 are suddenly going to be swayed to buy a $400 console. Thus the price sensitive consumer 3 years into a console's lifecycle probably aren't going to spring for a 4Pro. Appeal to new 4K owners has also been gimped by like of UHD - even if 4K owners don't own UHDs, they'd probably have been more inclined to get a UHD enabled 4Pro over a BRD Slim. Ergo I think majority of PS4 sales this Holiday and in the coming years to new owners will be Slim.

For existing PS4 owners this year
The amount of difference in visuals is probably not much. The price to upgrade is $150 minimum, more like $200. Only the early adopters of consoles are likely to bite at this price, unless the benefits for games are really that much more.

For existing PS4 owners over the coming years
4Pro's price will drop along with Slim's, such that the premium will likely narrow unless Sony keep it artificially higher. At which point, when the cost to upgrade is less, if that happens, value might improve. For buyers of mid-gen PS4s, a late 4Pro purchase before PS5 some years later may be worth it, but again, no amazingly strong argument for upgrading. For me as a new PS4 owners, what's the reason to upgrade? What does $100, 150 get me? Surely a few new games is worth more than slightly better shadowing in the games I've already played.

Overall, I think we'll see a rush of die-hard gamers get it, and then interest plank. 20-25% tops of PS4 install base will be Pro's come Jan 2019, I reckon. Wouldn't be surprised if its more like 15%. That could be more though if games manage to be significantly better. If 4Pro means PS4 games at 60fps instead of 30, I could see much higher adoption. My prediction here is on the assumption that the upgrades are marginal.

 

[Rangers]

It occurred to me PS half-4k (PS 2k?) kind of is in a bad spot. Why? They're doing 2560X1440 upscaled, right? Well, that's still 2X the pixels of 1080P. So you're sapping almost all the PS4 2K's extra power right there. You need 3.6 TF just to do PS4 at 2560X.

So you're not doing true 4k, and your 2560X upscale is basically limited to PS4 graphics. 1080P sets will get just a downscale effect, a half assed one (if/until devs dont start building in buffed 1080P versions).

Scorpio at least marginally can claim the all important true 4k lingo, like that wow effect when you say "my PC can run game X in 4k!". It has (very barely) arguably enough oomph to do PS4/XBO graphics at actual 4k, and put that bullet point on a box here and there, the formerly only badass PC territory now in a console. So that's point one. Point two, it has more oomph to do 2560 upscales in better-than-current-gen graphics, should that direction be chosen.

You could argue Scorpio is underpowered too, because it cant do the best of all worlds, true 4k AND much better than current gen visuals. Truly Scorpio/Pro need I dont know, 10+ teraflops, but that literally wasn't feasible. But at least Scorpio's in a lot better spot in two common scenarios.

If you drop to 1080P then PS4 Pro has enough to add nicely to the visuals, although Scorpio still has more of course.

Devs are truly going to be in a Pc scenario. You got a OG Xbox One? You get level A, you got a PS4Pro? Ok, you get level B. You got A Scorpio? Ok, you get level B+some added effects, buffed AA, and nicer textures. Just like PC. It truly is going to be incremental, and we may never be wowed by a new gen upon us all at once again.

 

[MrFox]

They are not doing 1440p upscaled.

 

[betternatethanlever]

It occurred to me PS half-4k (PS 2k?) kind of is in a bad spot. Why? They're doing 2560X1440 upscaled, right? Well, that's still 2X the pixels of 1080P. So you're sapping almost all the PS4 2K's extra power right there. You need 3.6 TF just to do PS4 at 2560X.

So you're not doing true 4k, and your 2560X upscale is basically limited to PS4 graphics. 1080P sets will get just a downscale effect, a half assed one (if/until devs dont start building in buffed 1080P versions).

Scorpio at least marginally can claim the all important true 4k lingo, like that wow effect when you say "my PC can run game X in 4k!". It has (very barely) arguably enough oomph to do PS4/XBO graphics at actual 4k, and put that bullet point on a box here and there, the formerly only badass PC territory now in a console. So that's point one. Point two, it has more oomph to do 2560 upscales in better-than-current-gen graphics, should that direction be chosen.

You could argue Scorpio is underpowered too, because it cant do the best of all worlds, true 4k AND much better than current gen visuals. Truly Scorpio/Pro need I dont know, 10+ teraflops, but that literally wasn't feasible. But at least Scorpio's in a lot better spot in two common scenarios.

If you drop to 1080P then PS4 Pro has enough to add nicely to the visuals, although Scorpio still has more of course.

Devs are truly going to be in a Pc scenario. You got a OG Xbox One? You get level A, you got a PS4Pro? Ok, you get level B. You got A Scorpio? Ok, you get level B+some added effects, buffed AA, and nicer textures. Just like PC. It truly is going to be incremental, and we may never be wowed by a new gen upon us all at once again.

I'm gonna have to disagree with your first point there. I don't think resolution has ever scaled that linearly in terms performance.

Theoretically, a game should run at 1080p 120fps to be able to run at 4k 30fps, but it seems more forgiving in actuality, assuming there is very little bottleneck from the CPU side, but that would be irrelevant.

This image shows that it's ~2.5x times more punishing rather than 4 times. Which has also been my experience from playing PC games.


Although if I'm wrong, feel free to correct me.

 

[dobwal]

Early last gen, you could of saved $100 by foregoing some combination of 20-40 GBs, chrome trim, Wifi, Cardreader and/or wireless controller.

The arcade stuck around until 2010 which was 5 years into the gen. Yet 80-90% of gamers bought the premium or pro models of last gen consoles.

If people were willing to spend an extra $100 on some ancillary features they just had to have, what's stopping them from spending an extra $100 on 2 more Tflops of computing power?

The odd man out is more likely to be the Slim than the Pro. I foresee the Pro out selling the Slim by 70-80% going forward.

 

[bunge]

If people were willing to spend an extra $100 on some ancillary features they just had to have, what's stopping them from spending an extra $100 on 2 more Tflops of computing power?

Time travel?

 

[davygee]

You can get £130 cash at CEX or if you want to trade in you can get over £160 at Game. I think you could achieve £150 today but of course that will drop soon. Not quite sure why you think the slim will be dropping price before Christmas? I would suggest once the Pro is out you could likely throw in a few titles you don't play and sell a bundle for £150 - for £200 you get double power, warranty and a quieter machine (it has to be surely!?). I guess time will tell.

I personally don't think the Slim will necessarily drop in price before Xmas, but seeing as you could pick up PS4 bundles pre-Xmas last year for less than the £299 RRP, I fully expect the same this year and wouldn't be surprised if we see standalone PS4 Slims going for £220 or even less.

 

[davygee]

It occurred to me PS half-4k (PS 2k?) kind of is in a bad spot. Why? They're doing 2560X1440 upscaled, right? Well, that's still 2X the pixels of 1080P. So you're sapping almost all the PS4 2K's extra power right there. You need 3.6 TF just to do PS4 at 2560X.

I'm not too sure what resolution some of these games are natively rendering at, but there was talk of 1800p for Horizon, although I'm sure I read that The Last of US PS4 Pro version will have a native 4K 30fps mode.

So you're not doing true 4k, and your 2560X upscale is basically limited to PS4 graphics. 1080P sets will get just a downscale effect, a half assed one (if/until devs dont start building in buffed 1080P versions).

Yes it can be looked like a half-assed 4k, but it's been reported to look great on a 4K screen and noticeably better looking than 1080p. Personally I don't see the problem with "PS4 graphics", we are generally seeing "high" level assets for most multiplatform games and yes of course there is a few missing features but to the standard consumer they don't generally notice these.

Scorpio at least marginally can claim the all important true 4k lingo, like that wow effect when you say "my PC can run game X in 4k!". It has (very barely) arguably enough oomph to do PS4/XBO graphics at actual 4k, and put that bullet point on a box here and there, the formerly only badass PC territory now in a console. So that's point one. Point two, it has more oomph to do 2560 upscales in better-than-current-gen graphics, should that direction be chosen.

Scorpio can theoretically claim true 4K, but again, to natively show 4K on the Scorpio it's going to use some of that extra TFlops to get it on screen, so surely the Scorpio will be limited in what it can do graphically as well.

You could argue Scorpio is underpowered too, because it cant do the best of all worlds, true 4k AND much better than current gen visuals. Truly Scorpio/Pro need I dont know, 10+ teraflops, but that literally wasn't feasible. But at least Scorpio's in a lot better spot in two common scenarios.[\QUOTE]

Yes, in my opinion the Scorpio (based on their announced specs) is underpowered and won't be able to do native 4K gaming at ultra settings and certainly not at 60fps. In reality I think we are a good 3 years away from a home console being able to get close to this, so maybe the PS5 in 2019.

If you drop to 1080P then PS4 Pro has enough to add nicely to the visuals, although Scorpio still has more of course.

Devs are truly going to be in a Pc scenario. You got a OG Xbox One? You get level A, you got a PS4Pro? Ok, you get level B. You got A Scorpio? Ok, you get level B+some added effects, buffed AA, and nicer textures. Just like PC. It truly is going to be incremental, and we may never be wowed by a new gen upon us all at once again.

I agree, although the 4K option for the PS4 Pro seems good on the face of it, I think developers should definitely put time into creating better quality 1080p experiences. Something similar to what CD is doing with Tomb Raider.