Sony PlayStation 4 Pro coming Nov. 10 for $400
Sony’s planning a one-two punch this holiday season to take the wind out of Microsoft’s sails. The company on Wednesday unveiled a pair of new PlayStation 4 consoles, both of which will be out this holiday season.
A slimmer version of the PlayStation 4 will hit the market next week – Sept. 14 – for $299, replacing the existing PS4 model. And on Nov. 10, the PlayStation 4 Pro – a high-end console that focuses squarely on 4K and high-dynamic range (HDR) video, will go on sale for $399.
Neither was exactly a surprise. Word of the PS4 Slim (which will just be called PlayStation 4) leaked weeks ago – and everything from an unboxing video to a review of the system has already run, despite Sony’s previous refusal to officially acknowledge its existence. And Sony confirmed the existence of the high-end model, then code-named Neo, back in June.
But each system serves a purpose in the company’s fight with Microsoft for dominance in the gaming world.
The PS4 Slim comes a month after Microsoft began shipping the Xbox One S, a slim version of its flagship console. Sony has held a commanding lead in hardware sales this generation – and a refresh of the current hardware at the same time as its competition could help ensure it stays in the lead. (The PS4 has sold more than 40 million units worldwide – an estimated 2:1 margin over the Xbox One, according to estimates from Electronic Arts earlier this year.)
“We know there are still a large number of gamers waiting to join the PlayStation 4 family,” said Andrew House, president and group CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment. “[The slimmer PS4] will appeal to a wider audience who are looking to buy the best entertainment system for their home.”
Things get a bit more interesting with PlayStation 4 Pro, though. The high-end system is designed to appeal to hardcore gamers and videophiles. Sony hammered its belief in 4K TV and HDR technology, with lead architect Mark Cerny calling HDR “the most exciting advance in TV technology in the past decade”. The enhanced graphics chip in the PS4 Pro will also make experiences in the upcoming PlayStation VR smoother, Sony said.
Not only will future games such as “Spider Man,” “Watch Dogs 2” and “Mass Effect 4 Andromeda” be built around both systems, but several older titles, including “Uncharted 4,” will receive patches to improve their graphical quality when played on a PS4 Pro.
Additionally, Sony said, Netflix and YouTube will offer 4K apps for high-quality video streaming. And to help push HDR adoption forward, a firmware upgrade will go out next week to all existing PS4 units making them HDR (but not 4K) capable.
TVs with both 4K and HDR are still far from common in people’s homes, though. To make the PS4 Pro appealing to those users, Sony noted that the system can detect the type of TV it’s hooked up to. Developers can then use that power to enhance graphics on a standard HDTV by increasing the frame rate and other tricks.
Microsoft’s high-end system, code-named Project Scorpio, was announced in June, but isn’t due until holiday 2017. Microsoft will likely point out that Sony failed to offer any hard tech specs for the PS4 Pro in its presentation. At E3, Microsoft officials unveiled a laundry list of impressive processing power, including eight CPU cores and six teraflops of GPU power.
“We believe it will be the most powerful console ever built,” said Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft’s Xbox division, during the console’s introduction.
Sony, though, has the timing advantage in releasing this year.
“We realized that the highly discriminating gamer, there is always a desire for advancement and they want it this generation,” said House.”[So] we’re adjusting and accelerating our innovation cadence.”
While it’s easy to think of both Scorpio and PlayStation 4 Pro as next generation upgrades, that’s not exactly right (though it’s not entirely wrong, either).
As the gaming world has evolved, so has the definition of “next generation” systems. Rather than hitting reset and launching entirely new consoles, both companies are offering systems that play all existing games for the PS4 and Xbox One, but greatly enhance the hardware power.
It’s not unlike the world of PC gaming, where systems aren’t reinvented, they’re simply upgraded.
Despite that, Sony attempted to argue that the PS4 Pro doesn’t represent a new generation of consoles.
“PlayStation 4 Pro is not intended to blur the lines between console generations,” said Cerny.
Analysts, though, say it’s really a matter of semantics.
“The traditional console cycle is dead,” said P.J. McNealy, CEO and Founder, Digital World Research.
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