Report: Sony Working on a "PS4.5"
- Thread starter Steven Bogos
- Start date
A little food for thought from someone who has to keep an eye on the video industry:
To date Sony has sold about 38 million consoles, but the second-biggest selling game to have the confidence to release actual sales numbers was Bloodborne at 2 million copies. Compare that to, say, roughly half of Wii-U owners having a copy of Splatoon. I wouldn't doubt a few other titles have sold more since, but the fact that nobody's willing to throw those numbers out to the public suggests sales for even massive AAA hits are still to a fairly small part of the overall userbase.
Everyone at The Escapist thinks of the PS4 as a downgraded PC, but the average consumer who buys a game or two every year thinks of it as an upgraded home theater product. Netflix and YouTube streaming apps, DVD/Blu-ray playback and connectivity to social media are the day-to-day functionality, with video games almost a secondary concern to be used on weekends or when a friend brings something new over to show off.
You see where this is going?
Those fancy 4K "Ultra High Definition" TVs have been out for a couple years now, but the actual spec all of them run on has only now been settled. BT.2020 is a lot more than just higher pixel counts - the High Dynamic Range colorspace behind it is a dramatic improvement over even digital cinema releases, and it features 10-bit video as standard to eliminate things like banding. This is awesome stuff for videophiles, and coupled with the HEVC codec, you could make digital streaming files smaller while maintaining (or even improving) quality on HD content.
The problem, aside from the TVs themselves not being BT.2020 ready (a cluster in and of itself, but irrelevant for this discussion) is... nothing out there really supports UHD playback, aside from a handful of specialty players that are little more than custom-built HTPC being sold at a loss. None of the GPU manufacturers out there are throwing in support for HEVC/UHD because none of the studios had agreed what UHD "was" until very recently, which left everyone in a holding pattern. Nobody wants to make new hardware that won't work with the new format, but nobody wants to use the new format if there's no hardware... and on it goes.
But 4K is only half of it: If Sony's going to overhaul the GPU for UHD compatability, that's going to require a lot more horsepower than what it has under the hood right now. The fact that they could use that excuse to dramatically improve what their Playstation VR support. The demos they've shown so far look fun, I'll give them that, but they also look like high-rez PS2 games with unique interactivity. If Sony wants to sell the PS4 as something you can strap a headset on and then play Battlefront or Assassins Creed or whatever in first-person, they're going to have to overhaul the hardware drastically to get even PS3-level quality running an inch from your face at framerates that won't make users vomit.
Will it make most games magically run better if a "PS4K" comes out? Nah, not really. Framerates will probably stabilize out on most games to whatever the target was, and I'm sure it'll upscale everything up to 4K, but this just means "Uncharted 5: You Didn't Think We'd Give Up Did You?" can be a 30fps "4K" title, with less refined shadows and post-processing than 1440p titles that are coming out the same week. By then AMD and Nvidia will be making cards that outpace the hardware, and we'll be back to about where we were before the PS3 came out; it'll be a comparatively powerful, but expensive and hard-to-sell beast with a handful of really cool exclusives, and a lot of functionality that kinda' sorta' works but will be made irrelevant quickly.
We've been here before, and we'll be here again.
To date Sony has sold about 38 million consoles, but the second-biggest selling game to have the confidence to release actual sales numbers was Bloodborne at 2 million copies. Compare that to, say, roughly half of Wii-U owners having a copy of Splatoon. I wouldn't doubt a few other titles have sold more since, but the fact that nobody's willing to throw those numbers out to the public suggests sales for even massive AAA hits are still to a fairly small part of the overall userbase.
Everyone at The Escapist thinks of the PS4 as a downgraded PC, but the average consumer who buys a game or two every year thinks of it as an upgraded home theater product. Netflix and YouTube streaming apps, DVD/Blu-ray playback and connectivity to social media are the day-to-day functionality, with video games almost a secondary concern to be used on weekends or when a friend brings something new over to show off.
You see where this is going?
Those fancy 4K "Ultra High Definition" TVs have been out for a couple years now, but the actual spec all of them run on has only now been settled. BT.2020 is a lot more than just higher pixel counts - the High Dynamic Range colorspace behind it is a dramatic improvement over even digital cinema releases, and it features 10-bit video as standard to eliminate things like banding. This is awesome stuff for videophiles, and coupled with the HEVC codec, you could make digital streaming files smaller while maintaining (or even improving) quality on HD content.
The problem, aside from the TVs themselves not being BT.2020 ready (a cluster in and of itself, but irrelevant for this discussion) is... nothing out there really supports UHD playback, aside from a handful of specialty players that are little more than custom-built HTPC being sold at a loss. None of the GPU manufacturers out there are throwing in support for HEVC/UHD because none of the studios had agreed what UHD "was" until very recently, which left everyone in a holding pattern. Nobody wants to make new hardware that won't work with the new format, but nobody wants to use the new format if there's no hardware... and on it goes.
But 4K is only half of it: If Sony's going to overhaul the GPU for UHD compatability, that's going to require a lot more horsepower than what it has under the hood right now. The fact that they could use that excuse to dramatically improve what their Playstation VR support. The demos they've shown so far look fun, I'll give them that, but they also look like high-rez PS2 games with unique interactivity. If Sony wants to sell the PS4 as something you can strap a headset on and then play Battlefront or Assassins Creed or whatever in first-person, they're going to have to overhaul the hardware drastically to get even PS3-level quality running an inch from your face at framerates that won't make users vomit.
Will it make most games magically run better if a "PS4K" comes out? Nah, not really. Framerates will probably stabilize out on most games to whatever the target was, and I'm sure it'll upscale everything up to 4K, but this just means "Uncharted 5: You Didn't Think We'd Give Up Did You?" can be a 30fps "4K" title, with less refined shadows and post-processing than 1440p titles that are coming out the same week. By then AMD and Nvidia will be making cards that outpace the hardware, and we'll be back to about where we were before the PS3 came out; it'll be a comparatively powerful, but expensive and hard-to-sell beast with a handful of really cool exclusives, and a lot of functionality that kinda' sorta' works but will be made irrelevant quickly.
We've been here before, and we'll be here again.
Smells wrong. But if it was true it would be hilarious. proof positive that 2 of the big three have acknowledged that they foisted an inferior product at premium prices.
I need more than an unnamed source to a subsidiary of Gawker to take this shit seriously though.
I need more than an unnamed source to a subsidiary of Gawker to take this shit seriously though.
Refreshing to read from people who wouldn't appreciate this if it were true.
Regarding the probability of this being true though, Phil Spencer "openly" rambled about a similar possibility for the XBox One. So it wouldn't even be too far fetched.
Well, if both companies would go the SEGA 32X/CD route, it hopefully would at least benefit Nintendo. SONY becomes awfully arrogant as soon as they're really successful, and Microsoft sometimes is eating too many mushrooms for my liking, and sometimes leaves the impression to be a Bond villain/EA.
So, if this comes out, I dearly hope it fails spectacularly.
Regarding the probability of this being true though, Phil Spencer "openly" rambled about a similar possibility for the XBox One. So it wouldn't even be too far fetched.
Well, if both companies would go the SEGA 32X/CD route, it hopefully would at least benefit Nintendo. SONY becomes awfully arrogant as soon as they're really successful, and Microsoft sometimes is eating too many mushrooms for my liking, and sometimes leaves the impression to be a Bond villain/EA.
So, if this comes out, I dearly hope it fails spectacularly.
Support 4k of what?
Tetris and Pong?
Movies?
Still images?
What framerate?
Silky smooth 30?
Rock solid 24?
Buttery smooth 12?
Dark Souls Blight Town -3?
Certainly not the games people buy a console for. Pretty sure it's Sony trying to make it support 4k movies and trying to set a "standard" of what they will be like if enough people buy the "New PS4 - Totally not Nintendo's favorite naming scheme". Expecting it to render some of the indies at 4k would be too much for a console of the PS4 price point.
Tetris and Pong?
Movies?
Still images?
What framerate?
Silky smooth 30?
Rock solid 24?
Buttery smooth 12?
Dark Souls Blight Town -3?
Certainly not the games people buy a console for. Pretty sure it's Sony trying to make it support 4k movies and trying to set a "standard" of what they will be like if enough people buy the "New PS4 - Totally not Nintendo's favorite naming scheme". Expecting it to render some of the indies at 4k would be too much for a console of the PS4 price point.
This whole topic is stupid. Kotaku writer pulled an idea out of their ass about some imaginary product and the whole internet starts speculating what it will do. First start with there being 99% chance that this will never exist. Also PS4 will not be able to do 4K It cannot even do 1080p properly. The best it can do is introduce the horrible DRM Sony keeps pushing called DHCP 2.2 which means that everyone wanting to watch 4k video content has to be fucked over by companies to do so.
The jokes about PS4 being a glorified VCR were true?UberGott said:
If its upscaled then they cannot claim its running at 4k and in fact doing so would be illegal (not that it eve stopped sony). Also its laughable to think that current consoles will ever run 1440p titles, even at 30 fps.
Stupid or not, even the wild speculation of Kotaku can accidentally be right every now and again. I guess nobody remembers the following interview from last year? Either Sony was full of it, or (more likely) they're quietly prepping a "4K Friendly" version of the hardware and are waiting on their GPU manufacturer to figure out how much more the tweaked hardware will cost before doing any real press about it. That said, how much of an actual upgrade this'll be (assuming it, y'know... exists) is anyone's guess. Apparently the GTX-960 is fully capable of playing back 10-bit HDR 4K content via dedicated HEVC, though lacking HDMI 2.2 it's already out of date.Strazdas said:
Infuriatingly, the GTX-970 (and 980+), oddly enough, have dedicated HEVC transcoding support, but can't decode it unless you force it with third-party solutions that... kinda', sorta' perform a hybrid solution. I can't stress enough how stupid going "4K" is at this moment in time. It actually makes me sad that I'm getting friends to check with me before upgrading any Blu-ray to make sure the damn thing wasn't rendered on a 2K DI, which is... most of the launch titles now available. Bloody hell, guys!
Sony doesn't have to claim the game is running at 4K. They just call it "4K Ready" and the TV itself confirms that the signal it's getting is UHD with HDR.
Many people can't tell when a PS3 game was upscaled from 540p, and fewer people after can tell if an Xbox One game is upscaled from 900p. Most people don't understand that their TV scales everything to the native panel resolution, much less understand how a game that plays at "1080p" could be 1280:1080p and still, technically, be true. So long as the TV itself says it's getting a 4K image, and the PS4K isn't any worse at it than the previous model, they'll just shrug and assume that must be what 4K games look like.
Never underestimate the ignorance of the average consumer.
yeah, the whole 4k transcoding and rendering side is a total mess still. Most of which is companies like Sonys fault too since they keep pushing for completely retarded DRMs on video (if you want to put DRM on a video then you should be dismantled as a company)UberGott said:
i think "4k Ready" is going to give a lot of bad associations with people because TV manufacturers used that scam to label 720p monitors as "HD Ready" even though HD is 1080p (and no, 720p is NOT HD, thats a very prominent scam put forth by tv manufacturer cartel for over 2 decades). Not to mention that most so called "4k" TVs right now isnt actually 4k but in 90% of cases its lower resolution, using the previuos convention would be around 3.8K.
though you are right, the average user is very ignorant and apperently blind. the kind of crazy statements ive heard from low resolution apologists.... There was one person on this forum that claimed lower resolution looks better on bigger screens....
It is NOT going to run games in 4K. You need a much more powerful console capable of that. At best the PS4.5 would have the new HDMI port and an UHD player built in. Anyone who thinks this will be a new console capable of playing game sin 4K is clearly out to lunch. What a stupid article.
I don't believe it. Sony got their start in games when other companies were pulling exactly this kind of shit.