Doubt about PS4 Pro???

[Mira Yurizaki]

 

44 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

FYI, PS4 has mouse and keyboard support (Dependent on devs to implement in-game), so you could try hooking a mouse up and seeing if Battlefield 1 has support.

Well there is this:

 

[Adam1984]

6 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

Excellent post - but would you mind editing it to be a bit more legible? You've got a massive wall of text. If you could break it up into a couple (or more) of paragraphs, that'd be good lol.

 

I agree the upscaling is quite good. We just got a PS4 Pro at work, along with a 4K HDR TV. We haven't used it too much (And not with Uncharted), but it looks damn good for a console. Is it as good as our Vive PC w/ a 6700 and a GTX 1070 at 4K? Hell. No. But damn, it's still pretty good looking. I haven't had any issues with framerate in any of the games I've played yet, but we've mostly been sticking to PSVR titles. Also, the 4K TV we got is 40", so that might help mask any artifacts visible due to the upscaling.

 

FYI, PS4 has mouse and keyboard support (Dependent on devs to implement in-game), so you could try hooking a mouse up and seeing if Battlefield 1 has support.

Yes my writing was a little great wall of china wasnt it lol. 

 

We play on a 40inch tv at home and it does hide some artifacts but we do sit fairly close, you will lose some texture quality. In bf1 im sure the textures will be sharper on pc maxed out. But the presentation of the game is such that I dont believe it makes much difference.

 

Again, I dont wanna compare it to a high end PC, but at the same time I will say for me and my budget its absolutely fantastic and in my opinion as good as it really needs to be. Lets not forget a lot of people game on mid end pcs and I am almost certain the difference in experience would very very small, but more game orientated than "whats my framerate" which becomes a hinderance.

 

[dalekphalm]

3 minutes ago, Adam1984 said:

Yes my writing was a little great wall of china wasnt it lol. 

 

We play on a 40inch tv at home and it does hide some artifacts but we do sit fairly close, you will lose some texture quality. In bf1 im sure the textures will be sharper on pc maxed out. But the presentation of the game is such that I dont believe it makes much difference.

 

Again, I dont wanna compare it to a high end PC, but at the same time I will say for me and my budget its absolutely fantastic and in my opinion as good as it really needs to be. Lets not forget a lot of people game on mid end pcs and I am almost certain the difference in experience would very very small, but more game orientated than "whats my framerate" which becomes a hinderance.

 

Considering that we payed $500 CAD for the PS4 Pro, a $500 CAD computer wouldn't be anywhere near comparable (Unless you bought all used parts or reused old hardware you had lying around - neither of which is a fair comparison).

 

Obviously in a few years, $500 CAD will get you a much more powerful PC then it will right now, but the PS4 Pro will also drop in price over time too.

 

Personally, I don't even like PlayStation products in general (I absolutely hate the DualShock style controller) - so I'm much more excited about XBOX Project Scorpio coming next year.

[Adam1984]

3 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Considering that we payed $500 CAD for the PS4 Pro, a $500 CAD computer wouldn't be anywhere near comparable (Unless you bought all used parts or reused old hardware you had lying around - neither of which is a fair comparison).

 

Obviously in a few years, $500 CAD will get you a much more powerful PC then it will right now, but the PS4 Pro will also drop in price over time too.

 

Personally, I don't even like PlayStation products in general (I absolutely hate the DualShock style controller) - so I'm much more excited about XBOX Project Scorpio coming next year.

The other thing to consider is that developers will be able to get much more out of the ps4 pro as the years go on. If you compare mirrors edge on ps3 to some of the later ps3 games I think its night and day in terms of graphics.

 

I always preffered PS to xbox, I got used to the xbox controller on my PC, I liked it. But I find the new PS4 controller to be very nice indeed, really comfy to hold and use. Maybe one criticism is that if you hit the wrong button you can end up back on the home screen. But doesnt happen much.

 

The Xbox scorpio will no doubt have more power, but there always seems to be some big drawback with xbox. Like the new PS4 doesnt support blu ray, you can bet the xbox will have some sort of trick up its sleeve to annoy all the consumers. 

 

 

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, Adam1984 said:

The other thing to consider is that developers will be able to get much more out of the ps4 pro as the years go on. If you compare mirrors edge on ps3 to some of the later ps3 games I think its night and day in terms of graphics.

 

I always preffered PS to xbox, I got used to the xbox controller on my PC, I liked it. But I find the new PS4 controller to be very nice indeed, really comfy to hold and use. Maybe one criticism is that if you hit the wrong button you can end up back on the home screen. But doesnt happen much.

 

The Xbox scorpio will no doubt have more power, but there always seems to be some big drawback with xbox. Like the new PS4 doesnt support blu ray, you can bet the xbox will have some sort of trick up its sleeve to annoy all the consumers. 

 

 

I would say that any console has drawbacks - regardless of whether they are PS or XB. So that's a toss up. I personally find the XBO/360 style controller significantly more comfortable to hold and use compared to the PS style controller. The analog stick placement on the XBO controller, in my opinion, is more natural. But this is of course 100% subjective to each person.

 

The lack of a UHD 4K Blu-Ray drive on the PS4 Pro was, honestly, an embarrassment. Sony fucked up hardcore there. Even the XBO S has one, and neither the PS4 Pro, nor the PS4 Slim have one. Totally a missed opportunity.

 

Since we know next to nothing about the Scorpio, I will not comment about any potential drawbacks that may or may not annoy customers.

[Adam1984]

17 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

I would say that any console has drawbacks - regardless of whether they are PS or XB. So that's a toss up. I personally find the XBO/360 style controller significantly more comfortable to hold and use compared to the PS style controller. The analog stick placement on the XBO controller, in my opinion, is more natural. But this is of course 100% subjective to each person.

 

The lack of a UHD 4K Blu-Ray drive on the PS4 Pro was, honestly, an embarrassment. Sony fucked up hardcore there. Even the XBO S has one, and neither the PS4 Pro, nor the PS4 Slim have one. Totally a missed opportunity.

 

Since we know next to nothing about the Scorpio, I will not comment about any potential drawbacks that may or may not annoy customers.

Yes your quite right but I was just speculating in conversation rather than asserting anything.

 

Yes controller comfort is totally subjective, also people have different sized hands. I didnt enjoy the xbox controller after a couple of hours of gaming. I also found it to be very fiddly analogue wise compared to the ps controller. Also I found that it gathered crumbs and dust way more. But still a great controller, there arent many in my opinion. The n64 controller was hateful

 

I didnt care about the blu ray at all, Ive never bothered with it, in fact I think its better because it kept the price down. I did however think that because its sonys speciality, they probably must have been a bit ashamed to announce it.

[dalekphalm]

25 minutes ago, Adam1984 said:

Yes your quite right but I was just speculating in conversation rather than asserting anything.

 

Yes controller comfort is totally subjective, also people have different sized hands. I didnt enjoy the xbox controller after a couple of hours of gaming. I also found it to be very fiddly analogue wise compared to the ps controller. Also I found that it gathered crumbs and dust way more. But still a great controller, there arent many in my opinion. The n64 controller was hateful

 

I didnt care about the blu ray at all, Ive never bothered with it, in fact I think its better because it kept the price down. I did however think that because its sonys speciality, they probably must have been a bit ashamed to announce it.

I can't imagine it would have affected the price much at all. The XBO S is pretty much the same price (if not cheaper) then the original XBO, and it's also the same price or cheaper then the PS4/PS4 Slim, and it included a UHD Blu-Ray drive. I really don't think price was a factor at all, unless they simply wanted fatter than usual profit margins.

 

I know lots of people think Optical Media is dead or simply don't care about Blu-Ray, but until streaming services can at the very least match Blu-Ray quality, I will continue to buy Blu-Ray movies and be interested in 4K UHD Blu-Ray.

 

My Plasma TV (practically Betamax these days) absolutely loves the additional detail of a Blu-Ray vs Netflix or YouTube.

[Adam1984]

 

19 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

I can't imagine it would have affected the price much at all. The XBO S is pretty much the same price (if not cheaper) then the original XBO, and it's also the same price or cheaper then the PS4/PS4 Slim, and it included a UHD Blu-Ray drive. I really don't think price was a factor at all, unless they simply wanted fatter than usual profit margins.

 

I know lots of people think Optical Media is dead or simply don't care about Blu-Ray, but until streaming services can at the very least match Blu-Ray quality, I will continue to buy Blu-Ray movies and be interested in 4K UHD Blu-Ray.

 

My Plasma TV (practically Betamax these days) absolutely loves the additional detail of a Blu-Ray vs Netflix or YouTube.

Yeah thats a fair point. Ive never really been able to get a worthwhile 4k stream, im sure 4k bluray is way better. In that thought I suppose your right. My only real point against that idea is that netflix is real cheap and easy and it satisfies my needs to the point where Im not bothered about blu ray. But there again I am tempted now by 4k blu ray the more im thinking about it, I guess ive never seen how good it is. 

[dalekphalm]

On 2016-12-31 at 4:41 PM, Adam1984 said:

 

Yeah thats a fair point. Ive never really been able to get a worthwhile 4k stream, im sure 4k bluray is way better. In that thought I suppose your right. My only real point against that idea is that netflix is real cheap and easy and it satisfies my needs to the point where Im not bothered about blu ray. But there again I am tempted now by 4k blu ray the more im thinking about it, I guess ive never seen how good it is. 

The thing about Blu-Ray, and by extension UHD 4K Blu-Ray, is that certain people (The majority of consumers) either don't notice the difference in quality, or don't give a shit about quality in general, beyond some arbitrary "baseline" (Say, DVD quality).

 

For them, Netflix 720p and 1080p are by far sufficient for their quality needs, and 4K Netflix will suit them good enough as well (assuming their internet can handle it).

 

However, those people who put a great deal of value in the quality difference will always gravitate to things like 1080p and 4K Blu-Ray. I count myself among those people, even though I lack a 4K TV at home. I rock a 1080p LG Plasma TV that blows away all but the best IPS LED backlit LCD TV's - probably the only ones to surpass it are the Quantum Dot LED LCD's. And of course OLED, because OLED destroys everything.

 

I do plan on getting a 4K TV, but not until prices come down a lot. I paid ~$650 CAD for my Plasma TV, which was already a great deal at the time. The reason why I'm waiting, is because I will not buy a cheap 4K TV with shitty image quality. The only TV's I would consider are the LG OLED's (top of the line, like $5000+ price range), or the Quantum Dot LED's. And both are out of my price range for the time being.

[SteveGrabowski0]

On 12/31/2016 at 2:37 PM, dalekphalm said:

The lack of a UHD 4K Blu-Ray drive on the PS4 Pro was, honestly, an embarrassment. Sony fucked up hardcore there. Even the XBO S has one, and neither the PS4 Pro, nor the PS4 Slim have one. Totally a missed opportunity.

I'd rather Sony hit the lower price point myself. A 4k blu ray drive is something I don't care about since I haven't bought a video disc since around 2006 (and most people I know my age or younger haven't bought discs in years either). The PS4 Pro was strictly about trying to hit that $400 price point while being able to render modern games at 1440p/1800p/native 4k at a stable 30 fps. Look how much everyone hated XBox One in 2013 for all the extra crap they bundled in to try to make it a media center, at the expense of using a weaker gpu than PS4 while still charging a 25% higher price. I am extremely glad they didn't put a 4k blu ray player in the Slim, since I'm happy to have gotten my PS4 Slim + Uncharted 4 bundle for $230. 

[dalekphalm]

30 minutes ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

I'd rather Sony hit the lower price point myself. A 4k blu ray drive is something I don't care about since I haven't bought a video disc since around 2006 (and most people I know my age or younger haven't bought discs in years either). The PS4 Pro was strictly about trying to hit that $400 price point while being able to render modern games at 1440p/1800p/native 4k at a stable 30 fps. Look how much everyone hated XBox One in 2013 for all the extra crap they bundled in to try to make it a media center, at the expense of using a weaker gpu than PS4 while still charging a 25% higher price. I am extremely glad they didn't put a 4k blu ray player in the Slim, since I'm happy to have gotten my PS4 Slim + Uncharted 4 bundle for $230. 

As I mentioned before, I highly doubt the BOM cost of a regular Blu-Ray drive vs a 4K capable one is significantly different for Sony (Considering they're part of the Blu-Ray consortium, and they manufacture drives themselves).

 

Consider an XBOX One S, and a PS4 Slim are essentially the same price. Yes the PS4 is more powerful, but negligibly in my opinion. If they had added a 4K Blu-Ray drive, I'm extremely skeptical that it would have increased the price tag. Sony can likely get them far cheaper than Microsoft could.

[SteveGrabowski0]

45 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

As I mentioned before, I highly doubt the BOM cost of a regular Blu-Ray drive vs a 4K capable one is significantly different for Sony (Considering they're part of the Blu-Ray consortium, and they manufacture drives themselves).

 

Consider an XBOX One S, and a PS4 Slim are essentially the same price. Yes the PS4 is more powerful, but negligibly in my opinion. If they had added a 4K Blu-Ray drive, I'm extremely skeptical that it would have increased the price tag. Sony can likely get them far cheaper than Microsoft could.

The XBox One S has to be sold cheaply to try to make up for all the market share they lost by trying to put all the bells and whistles nobody wanted on their console at launch. They don't have the exclusives Sony does, their gpu isn't as powerful, they had to throw in something extra in the 4k player to give them something to outshine the original PS4 in some facet.

 

Sony wasn't in the same dire straits. I don't want to pay even $20 more for my PS4 for a feature I, and most people I know who buy consoles, would find completely useless. And Sony doesn't want to take losses on consoles this time around, not while the economy has been crap for 9 years now, so I imagine they wouldn't just eat the price of the more expensive drive. You already said in a post above that you're in a minority of customers that cares about 4k blu ray. Sony seems to agree, you're not the target market. I'm the target market for the Slim, the guy who just wants to play games and not spend on extra premium features.

[Adam1984]

12 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

The thing about Blu-Ray, and by extension UHD 4K Blu-Ray, is that certain people (The majority of consumers) either don't notice the difference in quality, or don't give a shit about quality in general, beyond some arbitrary "baseline" (Say, DVD quality).

 

For them, Netflix 720p and 1080p are by far sufficient for their quality needs, and 4K Netflix will suit them good enough as well (assuming their internet can handle it).

 

However, those people who put a great deal of value in the quality difference will always gravitate to things like 1080p and 4K Blu-Ray. I count myself among those people, even though I lack a 4K TV at home. I rock a 1080p LG Plasma TV that blows away all but the best IPS LED backlit LCD TV's - probably the only ones to surpass it are the Quantum Dot LED LCD's. And of course OLED, because OLED destroys everything.

 

I do plan on getting a 4K TV, but not until prices come down a lot. I paid ~$650 CAD for my Plasma TV, which was already a great deal at the time. The reason why I'm waiting, is because I will not buy a cheap 4K TV with shitty image quality. The only TV's I would consider are the LG OLED's (top of the line, like $5000+ price range), or the Quantum Dot LED's. And both are out of my price range for the time being.

If its ok, I might pm you in regards to advice about what tv to upgrade to in the future. I find it all a bit baffling to be honest

[dalekphalm]

11 hours ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

The XBox One S has to be sold cheaply to try to make up for all the market share they lost by trying to put all the bells and whistles nobody wanted on their console at launch. They don't have the exclusives Sony does, their gpu isn't as powerful, they had to throw in something extra in the 4k player to give them something to outshine the original PS4 in some facet.

 

Sony wasn't in the same dire straits. I don't want to pay even $20 more for my PS4 for a feature I, and most people I know who buy consoles, would find completely useless. And Sony doesn't want to take losses on consoles this time around, not while the economy has been crap for 9 years now, so I imagine they wouldn't just eat the price of the more expensive drive. You already said in a post above that you're in a minority of customers that cares about 4k blu ray. Sony seems to agree, you're not the target market. I'm the target market for the Slim, the guy who just wants to play games and not spend on extra premium features.

It's perfectly fair that you, as a consumer, have different priorities over myself. However, I still think it's naive to think that Sony would have needed to charge more for that hardware. While I have no way of proving it, I'm certain that if they had included the 4K UHD Blu-Ray drive, the price would have remained the same. Not $20 more. Not $5 more - exactly the same.

But I suppose we'll never know. I wouldn't be surprised if the next iteration/generation of PlayStation (Another PS4? Or the PS5) included one, since HDR and 4K displays will be more prevalent by then. But that's pure speculation.

2 hours ago, Adam1984 said:

If its ok, I might pm you in regards to advice about what tv to upgrade to in the future. I find it all a bit baffling to be honest

Not a problem - I know it can be difficult to sort through all the info and crap thrown at you. And retailers don't really make it easy to see the difference in quality, just in features.

[SteveGrabowski0]

 

2 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

It's perfectly fair that you, as a consumer, have different priorities over myself. However, I still think it's naive to think that Sony would have needed to charge more for that hardware. While I have no way of proving it, I'm certain that if they had included the 4K UHD Blu-Ray drive, the price would have remained the same. Not $20 more. Not $5 more - exactly the same.

Why is it naive to think a 4k blu ray drive costs them more (likely significantly more) than a regular one? If I go to Best Buy the cheapest 4k blu ray player other than XBox One S is $350, while they have regular blu ray players for like $60. Even at newegg the cheapest 4k blu ray player is $229. Sony has already established they're not taking losses on consoles this generation, which is why we got crappy Jaguar cores and a gpu that was equivalent to a $100 HD 7850 at the PS4 launch instead of the high end stuff we got the MS and Sony the previous generation.

[dalekphalm]

38 minutes ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

 

Why is it naive to think a 4k blu ray drive costs them more (likely significantly more) than a regular one? If I go to Best Buy the cheapest 4k blu ray player other than XBox One S is $350, while they have regular blu ray players for like $60. Even at newegg the cheapest 4k blu ray player is $229. Sony has already established they're not taking losses on consoles this generation, which is why we got crappy Jaguar cores and a gpu that was equivalent to a $100 HD 7850 at the PS4 launch instead of the high end stuff we got the MS and Sony the previous generation.

Think about that.

 

An XBOX One S is $299 (or less). The cheapest standalone player is $350. You think Microsoft is taking a hit on the XBO S? Hell no. They're making some sort of profit off that machine.

 

The standalone players are selling with an early adopters tax. Plus, Sony, being a manufacturer (and board member of) Blu-Ray technology, would be able to get the drive at near cost. And it's just the optical drive, not the entire player (Which is, essentially, a small micro-computer).

 

You've established that Sony isn't taking losses on the consoles - well neither is Microsoft, yet they're still able to include one, and I doubt the BOM cost between PS4 Slim and XBO S are very different, given that Sony opted for more expensive GDDR5 system memory.

 

When they were originally released, the reason why the original XBO was more expensive was because it included the $100+ Kinect Sensor (Which is no longer a mandatory piece of hardware).

[Mira Yurizaki]

3 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Think about that.

 

An XBOX One S is $299 (or less). The cheapest standalone player is $350. You think Microsoft is taking a hit on the XBO S? Hell no. They're making some sort of profit off that machine.

 

The standalone players are selling with an early adopters tax. Plus, Sony, being a manufacturer (and board member of) Blu-Ray technology, would be able to get the drive at near cost. And it's just the optical drive, not the entire player (Which is, essentially, a small micro-computer).

 

You've established that Sony isn't taking losses on the consoles - well neither is Microsoft, yet they're still able to include one, and I doubt the BOM cost between PS4 Slim and XBO S are very different, given that Sony opted for more expensive GDDR5 system memory.

 

When they were originally released, the reason why the original XBO was more expensive was because it included the $100+ Kinect Sensor (Which is no longer a mandatory piece of hardware).

Microsoft and Sony's strategy for some time has always been sell the hardware at minimal profit and capitalize on software licenses.

 

It just so happens they've made a profit on hardware sooner this time around because they stopped doing purely custom hardware that took hundreds of millions, if not billions, to invest in and its only application is the console itself.

[dalekphalm]

4 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

Microsoft and Sony's strategy for some time has always been sell the hardware at minimal profit and capitalize on software licenses.

 

It just so happens they've made a profit on hardware sooner this time around because they stopped doing purely custom hardware that took hundreds of millions, if not billions, to invest in and its only application is the console itself.

Microsoft and Sony's strategy for the XBO/PS4 generation has been, from the start, to sell the consoles at a profit. Sure, that doesn't account for R&D, so there's still some investments to recoup. But neither of them have sold their consoles at below cost this generation.

 

Certainly, I agree with your statement in general though. They sell the PS4 and XBO at minimal profits (but some profits) and as long as the hardware isn't a money sink, they recoup the investments via game and peripheral sales, and subscriptions to their premium services.

[Mira Yurizaki]

6 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Microsoft and Sony's strategy for the XBO/PS4 generation has been, from the start, to sell the consoles at a profit. Sure, that doesn't account for R&D, so there's still some investments to recoup. But neither of them have sold their consoles at below cost this generation.

 

Certainly, I agree with your statement in general though. They sell the PS4 and XBO at minimal profits (but some profits) and as long as the hardware isn't a money sink, they recoup the investments via game and peripheral sales, and subscriptions to their premium services.

The cost of BOM including manufacturing for the PS4 at the start was close to the selling price. After factoring overhead, the PS4 cost more than it sold.

 

So I don't think they really were looking at making a profit from the get go here. At least, not a huge one.

[SteveGrabowski0]

6 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Think about that.

 

An XBOX One S is $299 (or less). The cheapest standalone player is $350. You think Microsoft is taking a hit on the XBO S? Hell no. They're making some sort of profit off that machine.

 

The standalone players are selling with an early adopters tax. Plus, Sony, being a manufacturer (and board member of) Blu-Ray technology, would be able to get the drive at near cost. And it's just the optical drive, not the entire player (Which is, essentially, a small micro-computer).

 

You've established that Sony isn't taking losses on the consoles - well neither is Microsoft, yet they're still able to include one, and I doubt the BOM cost between PS4 Slim and XBO S are very different, given that Sony opted for more expensive GDDR5 system memory.

 

When they were originally released, the reason why the original XBO was more expensive was because it included the $100+ Kinect Sensor (Which is no longer a mandatory piece of hardware).

Why do you think Microsoft is averse to taking a small loss with the XBox One S? They're desperately trying to claw back market share. I just can't buy that the better blu ray drive is free vs the regular one.

[SteveGrabowski0]

13 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

The cost of BOM including manufacturing for the PS4 at the start was close to the selling price. After factoring overhead, the PS4 cost more than it sold.

 

So I don't think they really were looking at making a profit from the get go here. At least, not a huge one.

At launch it cost Sony $381 to get each PS4 onto a store shelf, not just to manufacture.

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

Why do you think Microsoft is averse to taking a small loss with the XBox One S? They're desperately trying to claw back market share. I just can't buy that the better blu ray drive is free vs the regular one.

And why do you think Microsoft is suddenly taking a small loss? Let's be honest with each other, we're both making suppositions based on our own opinion.

 

I have no proof that Microsoft is still selling them over cost. But you also don't have any proof that they're taking a hit.

 

I never said that I think there was zero difference between the cost of a regular Blu-Ray drive vs a 4K one. I said the cost difference was negligible within the cost of the entire console itself. So maybe it cost Microsoft $5 or $10 more. They're not going to bother increasing the price by $10 in such a case, since I would suspect that they have more than $10 wiggle room in the profit margins.

[Mira Yurizaki]

11 minutes ago, SteveGrabowski0 said:

At launch it cost Sony $381 to get each PS4 onto a store shelf, not just to manufacture.

It cost $375 in BOM alone. I don't think shipping and other overhead charges would be $6 per unit.

 

To put in perspective, I worked at a company where the burden rate on an engineer was something like 3:1. That means for everyone $1 they spent on me, they spent $3 somewhere else. Then again, that's supposedly a pretty high burden rate.