To Pro or not to Pro

After gorging myself on various blogs and video game sites I’ve finally come to a conclusion on what I think about the Ps4 Pro and what I’d do purchasing wise, let me share.

Firstly positioning, this is a two way reaction to the numbers race between what certain pockets of the gaming crowd have be harping over, resolution! It’s also in more sensible circles a reaction to the realisation they need more power (Scotty) for the upcoming VR, I’m very interested to see how VR runs on the vanilla Ps4.

The physical design of the system is nothing short of horrible, it certainly looks last minute and judging by the press shots the materials certainly don’t convey quality or Pro status. Sections of the gaming landscape who complained about the original VCR xbox-one must have similar objections here you would hope. At least the materials used on the ‘phat-box’ were luxurious to a sense, it seems a role reversal as the vanilla Ps4 was a quality piece of kit and still looks well built, a money saving measure perhaps?

The power, again I can only go by what I’ve read and seen but it certainly is a step up! There’s no denying games made with the Pro in mind will look beautiful and hopefully won’t lead developers to alienate early adopters. SONY’s rules guidelines are here to stop this but there are already signs of Pro only features. One big thing to note is that we the meek won’t be able to appreciate the upgrade viewing on our non 4k,non HDR screens which leads me onto the most important thing that alot of folks seem to have missed:

Like big Phil Spencer said with the Scorpio, if you haven’t got a 4k TV with HDR you are wasting your money. You need to have the correct eyes to be able to see the beautiful landscape! This is why the new system is aimed at enthusiastic gamers who don’t mind shelling out for a £900 TV and £’insert price here’ for the console. This ethos rings true for both systems.

Saying this apparently games will look nicer on normal tv’s with a patch which is ‘OK’ but there’s no performance increase, I watched a nice discussion on digital foundry alluding to this fact too. So you are looking at some AA to rid the jaggies and a bit more foliage here and there, hardly worth the upgrade ticket.

One big omission from the system which I can’t quite believe is the UHD bluray drive? I mean come on! There is some marketing sway banding about to the tune of people only stream content these day. This is complete bull, the audience this console is aimed at want the best, UHD bluray is the best. Streaming is a poor man’s alternative, compressed sound and visuals are not for the connoisseur but for the consumer, a waste of the beastly TV you are gonna have to buy to get the best out of the Pro. Again maybe price and time line had something to do with it but still a poor decision.

It’s quite an odd thing to have a power upgrade so early on in a console cycle, the only situation similar I have experienced is the N64 ram pack. It was a worthy add on though and made Turok look great however it was cheap in context to what we have going on here. Another thing to note is only a handful of games made use of it which I’m sure won’t be the case this time around. The overall small step up in power kind of reminds me of the Intel way, the tic and toc analogy. The Pro is for sure the small tic and I think the Scorpio will be the big toc! Marketing however like always will probably have the final say on which upgraded console wins out, blast processing and all!

So in conclusion here’s what I’d do, remember this is my thoughts as a level headed consumer and gamer for the last 25 plus years, your actions are bound to be different.

If I didn’t have a PS4 and had a nice 4k HDR(the correct hdr type) TV I’d go for the Pro, it’s the sensible choice in this situation.

If you own a normal full HD TV I can’t see much point in spending out on the Pro, by the time you are ready to jump into 4k Tv’s the Scorpio will be out or the PS4 Pro + with UHD blu ray (pure speculation) will be around.

Finally  if you own a PS4 no matter what set up you have then it’s a no brainer to stick with it unless some Pro only games come out, which is not allowed likely.

Now excuse me while I goto the nearest Sony Centre to drool over the 4k tv’s and Playstation Pro.