Sony Explains Why the PS4 Pro Doesn't Include a 4K Blu-Ray Player - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 08 September 2016 / 11,148 Views
The PlayStation 4 Pro does not include a 4K Blu-ray player, which confused some people as Sony pushed 4K on the device when it was announced yesterday.
Instead of a 4K Blu-ray player, it will support 4K video streaming with Netflix and YouTube apps.
"Our feeling is that while physical media continues to be a big part of the games business, we see a trend on video towards streaming," Andrew House, the head of Sony Interactive Entertainment, told The Guardian. "Certainly with our user base, it’s the second biggest use case for people’s time on the system so we place more emphasis on that area."
"I think that since this is our first foray into this kind of mid-cycle innovation, it’s far too early to call that," House added when asked if PS4 Pro and Xbox Scorpio meant the end of the traditional five to seven year video game cycle. . "We think that for a really substantial period of time this is the PlayStation 4 lineup. We’re very comfortable with that."
House stated the PlayStation 4 Pro was not in reaction to Microsoft's announcement of the Xbox Scorpio at E3 2016.
"When Playstation 4 Pro was being conceived there wasn’t a word about Project Scorpio in the marketplace," said House. "I would suggest that ‘reactive’ isn’t our approach this time around.
"Lifecycles take on, at a certain point, a sense of momentum. Thanks to the efforts of great developers around the world and consumers that have placed their trust in us, we’re 40m units into this lifecycle. Our declared goal is to be a further 20m units above that by the end of next year. At that point we’ve got a pretty good sense of where the momentum of the lifecycle is, but I think the Pro can be something new, innovative and possibly take us in a slightly different direction."
"I saw some data that really influenced me," he added. "It suggested that there’s a dip mid-console lifecycle where the players who want the very best graphical experience will start to migrate to PC, because that’s obviously where it’s to be had. We wanted to keep those people within our eco-system by giving them the very best and very highest [performance quality]. So the net result of those thoughts was PlayStation 4 Pro – and, by and large, a graphical approach to game improvement."
The 20 million unit projection for PlayStation 4 sales include the PlayStation 4 Pro.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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I don't know how much more expensive it would have been but for $50-75 I would have much rather had a higher price and a UHD player, streaming is nice but UHD is the real deal when you have a 4k television it looks stunning!
Than buy a proper player for it to begin with like the panasonic ub900 or the Samsung
Ehh, it's prob more to do with the cost of including it.
PR bullshit at its finest. They were afraid it would impact the sales od their other 4K players. Maybe X1 S will benefit some from this move.
Good point, I'm sure Sony would much rather sell a uhd player than a ps4.
Or, maybe, there isn't a big market for uhd? Which would, ya know, coincide with this bs pr statement or whatever.
Maybe putting it in PS4 Slim and Pro would create a bigger market for physical UHD movies. That's how demand was created for DVD and Bluray, right?
It looks like X1 is going to become the most popular UHD Bluray player.
Yeah, this doesn't make much sense to me because they used the Blu-Ray player in PS3 to win the Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD war. They are not above taking a loss on the gaming division to promote their other divisions. The only thing I can think of is that sales of Blu-Ray and such have been taking such sharp declines lately they don't believe physical media will be that viable in 5-10 years. But imo, UHD is getting to be so high, nobody is going to be streaming that stuff for a long time and physical media would be the only route to go.
Hmm I thought it would've been a cost issue really and wanting to keep the Pro priced under $400.
So what have we learn everyone Sony does PR bullshit as well.
"House stated the PlayStation 4 Pro was not in reaction to Microsoft's announcement of the Xbox Scorpio at E3 2016."
So the PS5 will compete with scorpio then? I'm so, so confused.
The PS4/PS4Pro will compete against the Xbox1S/Xbox1Scorpio. I don't understand the confusion. The PS4 & PS4Pro play the same games. The Xbox1S and Xbox1Scorpio will play the same games.
Suggesting the PS5 will compete with Scorpio is like suggesting the DSi competes with the Vita. It's not the same gen. The DSi was just an enhanced DS much like the New3DS is an enhanced 3DS or the Gameboy Color was an enhanced Gameboy. The Vita's direct competition is the 3DS.
The fact that one is more powerful than the other means nothing when it comes to the question of what it competes with. PS4 original was more powerful than X1 original, 360 was more powerful than Wii, GameCube more powerful than PS2. When the gen started and it was clear the PS4 was far more powerful than the WiiU and also more powerful than the x1, were you confused and thought none of the 3 companies were competing with each other?
House explains quite clearly what he means. Ps4 pro was in development well before they knew about Scorpio. He's simply saying that development of ps4pro didn't start after Sony had heard Scorpio was a thing; that would be an action in response to Scorpio. (And clearly there wouldn't be enough time considering how soon the pro is launching).
It wasn't made in response to Scorpio. It wasn't created after the Scorpio was revealed. It's not a reaction to what MS is doing. What is complicated to understand in any of this?
If anything, Scorpio would be the reaction from MS to the PS4 Neo, since it's coming after, and well after MS knew what Sony was planning with what used to be called the Neo.
In other words, We want to save money.
So, who's this console for?
Price be damned, this was a Premium console. They should have charged $600 for it and added a UHD drive AND a Cell for hardware-based emulation.
Talking about matching PC performance is all very well, but one of the appeals of consoles is that they're much cheaper than a high end PC, so unless they want to release a $2,000 console, they're still somewhat restricted in those efforts.
The excuse that console gamers all rush to PC after three years is as lame as lame can get. This is about getting people to double dip where they use to single dip. Nothing more.
Pretty much! At least that's what I got from that.
Well if it is a flop they do have to explain it to the investors...
