Rumours have been doing the rounds lately about Sony working on a PlayStation 4.5 console with a possible GPU upgrade. I’ll be digging into my thoughts on the subject.
Sources have been pouring out of every seam on the internet regarding the existence of this PlayStation 4.5, or 4K as I will be calling it, that Sony is planning to launch. Reports claim that the new console would have a significant bump in GPU and possible RAM too and very likely the CPU would be more efficient but more or less the same. This whole idea has divided fans opinion on whether Sony should go ahead with such an endeavour or not.
First off , Sony is currently killing it financially on the console front, with a 30-odd-million installer base for the PlayStation 4. Which is fast becoming their best selling console ever. So why would they risk fracturing their user base into these 2 same yet different platforms? Not only will this anger some of us who actually bought this damn thing day one, thinking its going to last another 7 years like its predecessor, but also give a lot of developers a massive task of developing a game that needs to be optimized for PS4 and then bumped up for 4K. Or worse, a 4K exclusive that the 30 million users on PS4 can’t play at all because of the lack of horse power.
Honestly, in my opinion this is ridiculous! Sure its not the first console to have a mid-generation bump, but we not even in the middle of the generation yet. You could argue that the PC as a gaming platform still far superior and its forcing developers to scale down to accommodate the consoles. As true as that may be, consoles will always be inferior to a PC, if the PC in question has had tons of funds spent on it to make it as beefy as possible. And that’s truly the appeal of a console, you buy your game…you boot it up, smack your game inside and bam…game on! Its simple, its easy and you more or less get the same graphical fidelity as a PC running on Medium to High setting with some FX scaled down. Looking at the current stream of console game, they are pretty damn good looking and I honestly think there’s still a ton of power left inside the black box to explore in future games.
Somehow this has to go into a sexy PS4 shell…Good luck!
However, UHD is a thing now, and the TV sets are dropping in price and becoming more affordable. And Sony could be seeing a misstep they had with the current generation of console that did not include UHD compatibility. Sure you could run a PS4 on a UHD TV no problem, but you can’t watch native UHD content on it, or even play games at that resolution. Let me get this out of the way before I get shouted at by Master Race gamers. The rumoured console would likely not generate native 4K games, think of it as how the Xbox 360 some years back, would render 720p and it would be up scaled to 1080p, I think that’s exactly what Sony has in mind. Your 1080p games would still be 1080p but with some trickery it would be cleverly upscaled to 4K and would look smooth and native-ish. Plus VR just happened…sure the PS4 will drop out some pretty decent games, but would not compete anywhere on the level that a Vive or Rift enabled PC is cable of. Basically it would look like a wii in a time of Xbox 360. A GPU bump would mean that they can push higher fidelity games, within comparable quality as those of their PC counterparts. But is all this necessary?
I’m firmly in the camp of HATE IT! I understand the idea behind it and why it would make business sense to a point, but I don’t have to like it. It’s a very messy approach in a generation that is doing so well. I can pretty much tell you right now that the majority of PS4 owners who love their consoles right now and bought these bad boys day one…NEVER WOULD HAVE BOUGHT IT IF WE KNEW A 4K WOULD COME OUT 3 YEARS LATER!!! I’ve invested in both XBOX ONE and PS4 for this generation, so finding out that my shiny box is about to become the iPhone 6 when 6S has come out a little while later is really infuriating.
Is it really worth it? Sure does look pretty!
I think a better to handle giving a mainstream console a power upgrade, would be a upgrade kit of sorts where you take in your PS4 and some qualified technicians at the distributor or a 3rd party dealer would take your console away and bring it back a few days later with said upgrade kit installed in its internals. However such an endeavour would probably be quite pricey and technically speaking rather difficult consider the nature of a closed system. Option two is a bit clunky but effective, an external box of sorts that you purchase and connect to your current PS4, the box would have its own HDMI that supports UHD. Such a thing could then mean the masses that already own a PS4 are not left in the dust or forced to sell off their console on OLX at a loss to get the brand new 4k.
Only time will tell how this plays out. Microsoft has flat out said that an Xbox 1.5 will never happen and I think that’s a pretty good idea. You want 4K gaming, get a gaming rig, or just wait for the next generation of consoles, their very likely will be able to churn those out…in the mean time, I don’t find myself looking at my 1080p gaming and going, gosh I wish this was in 4k.
Oh my that’s a big difference…is it too late to switch sides?
How do the rest of you guys feel about this PS4k? Share with the world your thoughts in the comments below.
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