As a fan of Sony and really the brand I’ve grown up with all I can say is, I just saw Sony making the biggest unforced error of the current console generation. The rumors for the conference were more enjoyable and intriguing than the actual conference viewing experience.
The Event started by announcing the rumored/unannounced PS4 Slim that has already been reviewed and has breakdown videos online showing the complete internal console. This wasn’t anything special; I was hoping to see a $249 price but wasn’t shocked to see a $299. Literally just a slightly smaller and cheaper model, no new features, the Optical port was also removed from the PS4 Slim, that’s it just a new PS4 base model.
While I was watching I became nervous, I had full intention of springing for the new PS4 Neo, now confirmed to be named PS4 Pro. As the Slim was being explained I figured a price point of $399 was out of the question considering all leaks about the PS4 Pro that seemed to add hype to a campfire that was clearly out of control. I thought my expectations were tapered and can say that it was easily one of the worst video presentations I’ve every personally watched from start to finish, it was just straight boring and the presenter of the PS4 Pro was a bad choice.
When it came time to show the PS4 Pro, which happened as a transition from the new PS4 Slim, Mark Cerny stepped to the stage and announce the PS4 Pro. The man is clearly extremely smart; he was the lead architect on the PS4 but that doesn’t mean he might be the wrong guy to explain exactly what the PS4 Pro can do and who they are trying to pitch it to. I am a fan of Sony and I was planning on getting a Pro, formally the Neo, but it’s simply not worth it. Sony took one out of the day one purchase pile, and heaped me back with all the other folk. I thought, why do I need this and who is this PS4 Pro even for?
When Mark Cerny explained the benefits of the PS4 Pro there were 4 major points shown on the screen: 4k, HDR, HD TV and PS VR. Mark went through all 4 major points, it started with excitement and with every passing minute, it became clear Sony was out of its league and has no idea how to convey a clear message to their core audience why they need this console.
The 4k is just upscale, not native, which isn’t surprising considering the investment a Gaming PC needs to run native 4K. Next was the announcement the console would support HDR (only HDR 10 not Dolby vision), this is awesome, people are claiming HDR is going to be more important to visual fidelity then 4K textures but they pitched it in the worst way possible. Similar to 4k it needs to be experienced in person and on a very high end TV, clearly this is not the case for most of the viewers, especially when the content is on stream not even on a hard disc. All of these factors were why the 4k and HDR pitch was just so damn muddled. Not only do you need a crazy expensive TV (something I was hoping the PS4 Pro was going to push me to buy) and fast Internet to stream such a bandwidth eating video stream. So Sony continued to show how great the 4k and HDR look on a stream to viewers, who don’t have 4k TV’s and if they do have a 4k TV even less have HDR, something just adopted in the last couple of years on very High-end models.
You begin to understand why the message Sony was pushing came off so unclear but the last two main points HD TV and PS VR were still to be spoken about and I had hopes the Console would have Real VR applications, the OG PS4 and PS4 Slim wouldn’t be able to handle. The same goes for the HD TV info; I was hoping to hear how people that were still not ready for 4k at the moment could enjoy this new box with updated Frame Rates on old and upcoming games. This was simply not the case; the message was pushed in a way that didn’t appeal to those who have a PS4 now. This wasn’t mentioned at all and the PS VR info was just as confusing and uninformative as the first 3 main points.
When it came time for the PS VR segment I thought this was their time to shine, even though I’m not going to be an early adopter or an adopter of the PS VR at all. This was Sony’s chance to put the flag in the sand and show why the PS4 Pro matters and why you want it if you’re interested in VR. All that was shown and mentioned was higher pixel rate for the VR, I’ve never actually tried a VR headset but double the pixels doesn’t really make me want to shell out $400 extra on a headset. The way the VR portion of the message was handled didn’t make me more interested for the Box or for the headset, it just left me sitting there truly wondering, who this PS4 Pro is for?
The conference wasn’t all just hardware, a few exclusive PlayStation titles were shown as well as some 3rd party titles, all being showcases for the PlayStation Pro. The games where once again trying to showcase the 4k and HDR of the new PlayStation 4 Pro, as stated above, this fell flat because of the need to actually own all the tech they were referencing to see the visual pop Sony was touting. Similar to the actual hardware portion of the presentation the game showcase fell flat to me as well. I would not consider myself a fan of Call of Duty by any means but I was enjoying the Call of Duty game sample until the robots came. The game seemed to be in the light of Dead Space or the new Prey reboot by Bethesda games but that entire atmosphere was sucked away once robots were shown. I like what I saw from the game minus the enemy type, it seemed to have you on a space station and the environments looks much smaller and contained then pervious COD titles. The game seems to revert to the Black Ops 3 enemy type and that is unfortunate because the game looked interesting and I’m also interested in the Modern Warfare re-master (will also support 4k&HDR). A purchase seems unlikely on my end due to the robot enemy type. I think it would’ve been more fitting for some kind of “sickness” to take over a space station and you as the player have to go and search for survivors and find what happened. This could’ve been a great way to introduce a new enemy type in the Zombie game mode, something that will be featured in Infinity Ward’s upcoming title after being a stable of Treyarch Games COD titles.
I thought going into the event this box was for me. Boy, did Sony push me from the buy category to a spot where I questioned if it is really worth the investment without a 4K TV. I have the OG PS4 console and it’s going to get a Firmware update to the hardware that is going to Allow HDR for all PS4’s, not just the new Pro model. To many, this is more important then 4k, so why do I need to upgrade to a new box when the one I already own is going to get the new Tech as well? At the end of the day, I just don’t get whom this item is for. I don’t think it’s for people that want the latest and greatest luxury item; you can get a very similar box for $100 cheaper from Xbox called the Xbox S. The difference in price is an important distinction but the inclusion of a 4k Bluray drive in the Xbox S, something the PS4 Pro is missing truly set it apart for those trying to play physical media in 4K.The box also doesn’t look like a Big Mac with that terrible looking triple deck front the new PS4 Pro is sporting. I’m assuming the move of the blue light bar from the top to the front of the console has to do with VR but man is it just ugly. Something I harped on Xbox for when the came out with the VHS One.
