PS4 Pro Official Specifications (Codename NEO)

[DieH@rd]

I think that Pro will get nice array of enhancements for 1080p users, but users who are looking for an upgrade will have to take in consideration several things in addition to IQ/performance. [Resonably priced] Pro comes with 1TB drive, has better DVR/share quality settings, newer WiFi standard support, offers image enhancements for HDR/4K screens, and will enable rendering of better looking PSVR worlds [but I don't expect framerate issues on base PS4].

I plan to get one, but this year I will most likely get only PSVR.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Yup, the main reason why I'm considering the PS4 Pro on the mid-term is for the off-chance that PSVR will bring good full VR games, not just cute demos like what we have in the PC environment.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I wonder if its worth it to upgrade to Pro if I dont own a 4K TV. If games will see a substantial increase in framerate or graphic fidelity then it might be worth it but so far it doesnt seem to be the common case. Only the exemption.

I think I'd wait on it and watch the digital foundry comparisons for a little while. Hopefully they'll do comparisons of 1080p output on Pro to standard PS4. I'm sure someone will.

 

[Arwin]

You will see an increase for most games, but whether it will be substantial will be a personal matter to a large extent. I expect better AA, more stable frame rates and better draw distances, and more particles and physics effects to be the main candidates here. Personally I also like the better game DVR/streaming a lot.

 

[Pixel]

Smart of them not to include a UHD drive in the system. The bluray format and disc format itself is slowly dieing. People think they want it, but will they really use it much? For most people outside of movie buffs and collectors I'd say rarely, streaming is the future as many many people want to save money than buy still relatively expensive uhd bluray movies. The future is streaming and even Sony a head of the bluray consortium knows it.

 

[bunge]

Apparently you can get a UHD player for $120.

 

[BRiT]

Apparently you can get a UHD player for $120.

Those are normal BluRay players that have 4K UHD upscaling on the video output. Those are the $120 units and do NOT support 4K UHD BluRays media.

Here is one such model: http://www.qvc.com/qvc.product.E284838.html?item=E284838 The Samsung Smart 3D 4K UHD Blu-ray Player with Built-in Wi-Fi. It only does 4K UHD Video scaling and does not support the 4K UHD BluRay discs.

 

[djskribbles]

Smart of them not to include a UHD drive in the system. The bluray format and disc format itself is slowly dieing. People think they want it, but will they really use it much? For most people outside of movie buffs and collectors I'd say rarely, streaming is the future as many many people want to save money than buy still relatively expensive uhd bluray movies. The future is streaming and even Sony a head of the bluray consortium knows it.

I agree to an extent. Doesn't make sense to put it in the slim because really only a small percentage of the console userbase care about UHD, and ultimately that will save Sony millions of dollars. This will allow Sony to price the PS4 slim very competitively.

This is a bit different than the PS3 days when Blu-Ray was becoming the standard for video and digital content wasn't as big as it is now. UHD Blu-Ray is far more niche than Blu-Ray was back in 2006 IMO.

I do think that they should have included a UHD player in the Pro model though. Maybe they will in the next revision, who knows. That would probably make more sense since UHD Blu-Ray content is very limited right now. Not to mention the amount of owners with 4K displays is probably very low.

 

[BRiT]

From what I've seen, the adoption rate of 4K UHD BluRay is substantially higher than that of BluRay at it's same life-cycle.

I do agree that the PS4S is fine without it.

 

[BRiT]

Found one of the places with sales figures showing a 4x faster adoption rate: http://www.homemediamagazine.com/high-def/ultra-hd-blu-ray-gets-fast-start-38350

Studio executives are cheered by early Ultra HD Blu-ray sales numbers, which far surpassed expectations.

A total of 45 Ultra HD titles have been released on Blu-ray Disc since March — and according to Home Media Magazine market research, consumers bought more than 228,000 discs as of June 24.

By comparison, Blu-ray Disc, launched in June 2006, moved just 57,000 units in the comparable time frame.

That’s not surprising, analysts say. Industry observers expect the rapid advance of Ultra HD — the much-ballyhooed new format that not only offers viewers four times the resolution of HD, but also includes high dynamic range (HDR), which produces brilliant highlights, vibrant colors and greater contrast on compatible displays — to trigger a resurgence in overall Blu-ray Disc sales, which already are tracking up 3% for the year in units and 6% in dollars, Home Media Magazine market research numbers show.
...
Man Jit Singh, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, agrees. “In November 2005, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment authored the first Blu-ray Disc,” he said. “Since then, we’ve continued to innovate on the format by adding features like 3D, and earlier this year we released our first Ultra HD Discs. Early sales of the new format show that consumers still love collecting movies and TV series.”
...
“2016 will be a phenomenal year for 4K Ultra High-Definition (UHD) TVs — driven in part by the market introduction of next-generation technologies — with shipments of 4K UHD displays projected to reach 13 million units (an 83% increase),” the Consumer Technology Association said in its latest research report. CTA expects revenue from 4K UHD displays in 2016 to top $10 billion, a 65% increase from last year.

 

[djskribbles]

Apparently initial sales have been much better than Blu-Ray back in 2006. Color me surprised. Maybe it's just due to the fact that Blu-Ray is already an established format; whereas it was in a transition period from DVD a decade ago. Not to mention it had to compete with HD-DVD as well as DVD.

I honestly still see UHD Blu-Ray as more niche than Blu-Ray back in 2006 and I don't see it keeping pace, but we'll see.

Sony can always add UHD down the road when 4K displays have a higher install base. I'm sure they looked at the numbers and considered including a UHD drive but obviously decided that it's not worth it at this point.

edit: @BRiT, yup just read that.

 

[MrFox]

Blurays launched in a format war, and at launch the lowest priced player was $1200, making the PS3 five months later a bargain, and the real start of bluray. Bluray launched in june 2006 with almost nothing available.

In contrast, UHD launched at $400 (samsung again), and will be commoditized below 200 very soon. The single chip asic will make them a better choice than a 70W game console. It will remain a niche because very few people have the gigantic screen necessary to see a difference, this wasn't the case with bluray.

Value added feature are not helpful if they end up making 90% of gamers pay for the 10% who want 4k disc playback. Value added for a higher price is not well accepted, as the launch PS3 have shown. Losing money to push a format is also no longer in sony's philosophy.

It sucks it doesn't have it, but I think a 449 price point with uhd bluray and a 2tb would have been a worse situation.

 

[djskribbles]

Blurays launched in a format war, and at launch the lowest priced player was $1200, making the PS3 five months later a bargain, and the real start of bluray. Bluray launched in june 2006 with almost nothing available.

In contrast, UHD launched at $400 (samsung again), and will be commoditized below 200 very soon. The single chip asic will make them a better choice than a 70W game console. It will remain a niche because very few people have the gigantic screen necessary to see a difference, this wasn't the case with bluray.

Value added feature are not helpful if they end up making 90% of gamers pay for the 10% who want 4k disc playback. Value added for a higher price is not well accepted, as the launch PS3 have shown. Losing money to push a format is also no longer in sony's philosophy.

It sucks it doesn't have it, but I think a 449 price point with uhd bluray and a 2tb would have been a worse situation.

Completely agree.

Damn I forgot Blu-Ray players were THAT expensive back then.

When it actually makes sense, I think Sony will eventually include a UHD drive in the PS4; again probably in the next revisions when they're cheaper and UHD displays have a bigger install base.

 

[Rurouni]

What? PS4Pro2? PS4Pro+? ProU? PS4PronoCons?
Anyway, the spec is actually fine, what might hurt them by not including UHD isn't because of the exclusion itself but the negative comments/reviews/articles/etc about it which might affect the general consumer into thinking that PS4Pro, even at $400, is either too expensive or should have more value in it (by including UHD BD).

 

[Clukos]

What? PS4Pro2? PS4Pro+? ProU? PS4PronoCons?
Anyway, the spec is actually fine, what might hurt them by not including UHD isn't because of the exclusion itself but the negative comments/reviews/articles/etc about it which might affect the general consumer into thinking that PS4Pro, even at $400, is either too expensive or should have more value in it (by including UHD BD).

Even without UHD blu-ray the PS4Pro packs more value than the Ps4 slim or the X1S, simply because of the h/w power gap. I also think the Ps4 slim should have been priced at $249 but i guess Sony think they can get away with $299 and a holiday price drop to $249. The Xbox 1 S is also missing several UHD blu ray features, such as Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, Dolby Vision (HDR12).

 

[bgroovy]

Blurays launched in a format war, and at launch the lowest priced player was $1200, making the PS3 five months later a bargain, and the real start of bluray. Bluray launched in june 2006 with almost nothing available.

In contrast, UHD launched at $400 (samsung again), and will be commoditized below 200 very soon. The single chip asic will make them a better choice than a 70W game console. It will remain a niche because very few people have the gigantic screen necessary to see a difference, this wasn't the case with bluray.

Yes, it's absurd to compare disc sales from a period when playback devices cost one to two thousand dollars for Bluray.

 

[orangpelupa]

Maybe they are content with Microsoft pushing 4k BluRay

 

[Clukos]

It's also interesting to note that while Dolby Vision is a superior format in comparison to HDR10 (by about 3 billion colors) its licensing costs are probably a limiting factor for low end consumer products and games so we might not see Dolby Vision mastered games (or support in consoles) in a long while.

 

[antic604]

What? PS4Pro2? PS4Pro+? ProU? PS4PronoCons?

ProStation 4

 

[antic604]

Delta color compression reduces render target (ROP) read and write bandwidth cost. It doesn't help anisotropic texture filtering.

Most games already use BC (DXT) compression for all textures that are anisotropic filtered. All DX11 compatible hardware supports BC compression.

Ok, thanks for clarifying that. But my understanding - perhaps wrong? - was that consoles struggle with proper AF because they need to share their finite bandwidth between CPU and GPU, so if there's some additional compression available on Polaris architecture, then more bandwidth would be left for other things, e.g. AF? If that's not the case, then why we don't see better AF on consoles?