The X1X makes the PlayStation 4 Pro feel like a half-measure (Polygon/Opinion)

[entremet]

https://www.polygon.com/2017/11/29/16704346/xbox-one-x-playstation-4-pro-power-discs

by Ben Kuchera

Excerpt:

These things, taken singly and together, surprised me: Microsoft has created a product that doesn't just make games look and play better, but has changed how I interact with the entertainment I'm consuming, including giving a second look at physical media for movies. This is why it's such a fascinating system — the tension of having to live inside a future that's not quite here yet.

But that future can also be easy to get used to, and not in the best way. The initial "wow" factor of the image can wear off fairly quickly, even though you'll notice a large step downward if you try to return to a 1080p display powered by an existing console. Most players will be impressed at first, and then they'll get used to it before ultimately shifting into a situation where they might not be able to tolerate anything else. It can be eerie how quickly you get used to something that felt miraculous a few short days ago.

This doesn't change the fact that the Xbox One X often makes the PS4 Pro seem like a half-measure. Navigating the landscape of capable 4K displays is still more complicated than it needs to be, and focusing on physical discs to get the best possible images from your films may seem like a step backward, but this is a premium product for people who are willing to sacrifice convenience for fidelity. I'll discuss this more in a future story, but you should also prepare yourself for a surprisingly fiddly and extensive calibration process to get the best possible image ... and what looks great for games may not be the best settings for movies or streaming services.

Click to shrink...

I do think Sony's 599 debacle made them a bit gun shy with the PS4Pro, surprised it didn't ship with 4k BR player. But it doesn't seem to be hurting them, so the bean counters won in the end.

 

[Andrew Lucas]

It really does, couldn't be more satisfied with it. Still, Pro ain't that bad for the price tag.

 

[Infinity Times Two]

The lack of a 4K BR player in PS4 Slim/Pro still bothers me. It would've been a nice bonus feature if you have a 4K TV.

Now it's a feather in the cap for Xbox.

 

[Sony]

I do think Sony's 599 debacle made them a bit gun shy with the PS4Pro, surprised it didn't ship with 4k BR player. But it doesn't seem to be hurting them, so the bean counters won in the end.

Click to shrink...

Sony has great momentum, PS4 is selling very, very well. I highly doubt the PS4 Pro would have suffered much from being 429,99 instead of 399,99, with the addition of a UHD-BR-Player. Even Xbox One S has a UHD player... Yes, PS4Pro does feel like a half measure because it it. Checkerboard 4K is the focus and that is a half measure.

 

[CaviarMeths]

Yeah, I think that was the general sentiment leading up to the PS4P launch. I definitivey remember discussion about it lacking a 4k bluray player despite even the X1S having one.

 

[Savantcore]

Well, in relation to each other, that's exactly what it is. It isn't exactly a revelation that X1X > Pro.

 

[entremet]

Sony has great momentum, PS4 is selling very, very well. I highly doubt the PS4 Pro would have suffered much from being 429,99 instead of 399,99, with the addition of a BR-Player. Yes, PS4Pro does feel like a half measure because it it. Checkerboard 4K is the focus and that is a half measure.

Click to shrink...

What's interesting, with the PS4 doing so well, even back then when the PRO was announced, Sony had the margin of safety of releasing a truly premium product. Vanilla PS4s were still selling like hotcakes. It's a shame they didn't just go all out. But like I said, I think the 599/499 debacle really scarred Sony permanently.

 

[DocSeuss]

I would love to be able to get an Xbox One X. Sounds like a dream console. One of my favorite things right now is streaming games to my underpowered laptop using an Xbox One controller with bluetooth directly from my Xbox in the other room. A friend sent me some game codes earlier, and one of them is a Play Anywhere game; it's amazing to be able to play on the PC when I feel like it, then boot it up on my Xbox when I don't.

no console has ever been this cool before, from a geeky perspective.

 

[scourge_of_tirany]

Ben "fart in the wind" Kuchera, worst gaming journo out there, lets have a laugh

 

[bane833]

Well of course it does, it came a year later and costs at least a hundred bucks more. And the Pro is a pretty half assed product overall (still waiting for that Bloodborne patch Sony).

But in the end it´s the games that matter and that´s were the Pro shines and the X fails.

 

[Philippo]

Heh, i'm sure they'll just take all these and make a killer PS5.

 

[Crumpo]

On a technical level, of course XB1X is better. But not almost double the price better. Jumping from 4K to 1080p is jarring now, but 4K to CB 4K really isn't.

Reading the "convenience over quality" (like compressed HD with Netflix) I was thinking the article was supporting CB 4K over true 4K, for example, but the rest of the article doesn't say that...most confusing.

 

[CanUKlehead]

It better make the PS4P a half measure, based on cost and length of time between launches!

 

[get2sammyb]

Fair play to the people who do care about 4K Blu-rays, but I honestly couldn't give less of a crap than I do. I'd much rather save a few quid than pay for something I'll never use.

I'm sure someone's going to quote me with statistics that show how "big" 4K Blu-ray adoption is, but I just don't believe there are a significant number of people out there clamouring for high-end physical media.

As for the PS4 Pro itself; I mean, this is the "narrative" (sorry!) that the premature Project Scorpio announcement was supposed to create. From my (potentially biased) perspective, I see games like God of War, Horizon, Detroit, and (the recent cut-scene of) The Last of Us: Part 2, and I struggle to see how anyone could say this system is a half-measure when the first-party games it's churning out look better than anything else out there.

That said, I do think there are elements of the product Sony could have done better -- although part of the problem is that it had first-mover "disadvantage".

FAKE EDIT: Also, as other posters are pointing out, there's a significant price and release date discrepancy that needs to be taken into account.

 

[Diplo]

I am happy with my pro (except the fact of no 4k uhd player), but i wish Sony waited and matched x1x.

 

[TRU]

I own both and haven't touched my Pro since 11/7. Granted it's a small sample size, but an example that the Pro isn't as appealing when I want to burn an hour or so on gaming.

 

[jabel]

 

[Oticon]

It's a weaker console that launched a year earlier for a cheaper price. Doesn't seem like a half measure to me it's actually pretty in-line to where I expected it to land in comparison to the One X.

 

[Einbroch]

$100 cheaper and a year earlier.

The 4K Blu-ray player missing was a bit of a disappointment, but I can't remember the last time I watched a physical movie. Had to be 5+ years ago.

 

[RayFoxII]

Isn't that exactly what the PS4 Pro was meant to be? A half-measure stopgap until the PS5? I think that's perfectly fine considering when it launched and the price it launched at.

 

[TRN]

It's a half-measure console with more exclusive games on it with better frame rate.

 

[sirap]

I agree with a lot of his points, but that article is a mess. And that title...ugh. Pro came out a year earlier and was $100 cheaper (It's even a better deal now with bundles.)

Of course the XBX is gonna feel more premium.

 

[Shatty McKracken]

I really think the systems were built with 2 different purposes.

Xbox One X - to push 4k gaming

PS4 Pro - to push Sony's VR.

 

[tulpa]

Ehh, Microsoft's whole approach seems like a half measure right now. A powerful piece of hardware without any compelling reason to buy it in terms of software, at a price that's still a barrier to a lot of people. Microsoft has placed so much time and energy into the X but it's impossible to shake the feeling they aren't placing the same effort into development in any way.

And, still, at the end of the day... if I want the best experience on Crackdown or Gears, I should get it on PC. If I want the best experience on Horizon or God of War, I have to purchase a Pro. There's some things I like about the X like backwards compatibility and the enhancements there but I have so many new games right now I just feel like I would never use it. I still think it has a limited audience, maybe an even more limited audience for the Pro. If they had hardware like the X and started once again offering a first party lineup similar in quality to the 360, there's no doubt I would go back to the Xbox platform. But right now there's nothing about it that even remotely interests me, and I'm a 4K HDR screen owner open to the idea of these mid gen refreshes.

 

[Deleted member 20964]

Ben "fart in the wind" Kuchera, worst gaming journo out there, lets have a laugh

Click to shrink...

Great contribution to the discussion.

 

[Deleted member 888]

It came out a year earlier, so of course it won't be as powerful. Now when the PS5 launches is the Xbox One X going to be a mistimed early release that should have waited another 1~2 years?

Did Sony go too early? Meh, striking when their iron was hot in terms of PS4 sales, and wanting to try and give PSVR ownership a boost given that the original PS4 really is lacking for powering VR. It was an okay priced mid-cycle revision, and let's not pretend everyone didn't have "fun" in this one year headstart when it comes to enjoying some graphical/FPS boosts.

Now, the Pro design, yes, that is an utter trainwreck and whoever was in Sony's design R&D department knocking it up must have had a hangover.

 

[André]

After owning a Pro for a year, I definitely feel that the console was half-assed.

Actually, it's not so much the console, but the effort Sony puts into supporting it. There's so much that could be done with firmware updates that just isn't happening, such as system-wide supersampling, forcing graphical boosts (such as increased AF) for older games, individual Pro settings for each game (for example, have a system menu for each game where you can set whether to run it in Pro mode, Boost mode, or regular PS4 mode)... the list goes on.

The most they did was introduce Boost mode, and even that only unlocks a tiny portion of the Pro's extra power for older games. Some games see no benefit whatsoever on PS4 Pro just for the fact that the console is connected to a 1080p display. PS2 games still run at the base PS4 resolution of 1292x896 on PS4 Pro. PlayStation 2 games. At 896p.

There's just no excuse for the lack of apparent trying from Sony regarding this console. They let it out in the wild, added the most basic implementation of Boost mode, and then abandoned it, hoping that support from developers would be enough to give it the added value Sony claims it has.

 

[SnakeyHips]

Pro came out a year earlier and was $100 cheaper.

Click to shrink...

/thread

 

[CognitiveAtrophy]

In terms of power you may be right.

Shame the one the thing that truly matters, it's library, is so woefully anaemic.

 

[Neural]

Yep, it does.

 

[Keikaku]

Does he not know that the XBS also plays UHD BD's?

 

[ASEdouard]

A Ben Kuchera opinion piece, really?

 

[Deleted member 2254]

Got shat on in another thread when I said it, but it's how it is. If we take the suggested retail price of both, it's 100$ difference. The Xbox One X is vastly more powerful, it has a 4K Blu-Ray Player, it had more "exclusive" features including enhanced backwards compatibility... for such a small difference in price the gap between the two mid-gen upgrade consoles is absolutely massive. Of course it really comes down to tastes for games and such, but as a piece of hardware, the Xbox One X is miles better than the Pro, more than the one year and 100$ difference would imply. Microsoft did a splendid job with this console, and it's the best console to play on right now, hands down.

 

[Webbo]

I bought a Pro a few weeks ago after trying to decide between upgrading my launch PS4 or my One S

The fact that the Pro was £150 less with a game included, and the much bigger first party library made the decision much easier.

And I still have a One S as my 4K bluray player and the few exclusives I may want to play.

 

[hey it's that dog]

PS4 Pro was designed to be a half measure.

It's great that MS were somehow able to release a more powerful console with a higher price tag one year later. Really impressive stuff. Let me know when they have a game on there that looks significantly better than Sony's AAA first party stuff on a standard PS4.

Good on ms for the back compatibility initiative, but that's what happens when your consoles have always been of a similar architecture. Sony will have to compete with that skme other way. And PSNow is NOT that way.

 

[Deleted member 5604]

I'm good with my XB1S and Pro combination. MS "messed up" by putting a 4K BR in the XB1S a year earlier. The Pro is just fine for something that released a year earlier at a $100 cheaper pricepoint (and was available for $200 cheaper with an additional game on top over here during the recent sales).

I do hope however Sony learns from what MS did with the X for the PS5 in regards to things like system wide downsampling and 16x af. It'd be cool to have PS4 games automatically looking a bit better on the PS5 without any patches.

 

[bbq of doom]

Fair play to the people who do care about 4K Blu-rays, but I honestly couldn't give less of a crap than I do. I'd much rather save a few quid than pay for something I'll never use.

I'm sure someone's going to quote me with statistics that show how "big" 4K Blu-ray adoption is, but I just don't believe there are a significant number of people out there clamouring for high-end physical media.

As for the PS4 Pro itself; I mean, this is the "narrative" (sorry!) that the premature Project Scorpio announcement was supposed to create. From my (potentially biased) perspective, I see games like God of War, Horizon, Detroit, and (the recent cut-scene of) The Last of Us: Part 2, and I struggle to see how anyone could say this system is a half-measure when the first-party games it's churning out look better than anything else out there.

That said, I do think there are elements of the product Sony could have done better -- although part of the problem is that it had first-mover "disadvantage".

FAKE EDIT: Also, as other posters are pointing out, there's a significant price and release date discrepancy that needs to be taken into account.

Click to shrink...

While Horizon is arguably the best looking game I've played this generation, none of the other games you cite are released. Not sure their inclusion helps your overall point, particularly when pretty much any updated third party multi plat is a showcase for the X.

 

[Buffer]

I have enjoyed 4K HDR on the Pro for a whole year. Great device.

PS4 Pro + Switch + Gaming PC = All bases covered.

 

[_Rob_]

In the same vein as the Wii U, I believe one of the biggest issues the X1X faces is it's confusing naming scheme. I've had several people I know choose a PS4 pro over the X1X simply because they understood what it was.

I can certainly see why you'd think the Pro was a half step, but unless you're someone with a 4K TV, I fail to see much of a difference to your average consumer.

 

[Sloane Ranger]

Sure it is - it came out sooner and cheaper and was meant as a plus-up.

X1X came out later, with more power, and was more expensive. But it was developed to combat a market perception they felt was holding them back.

Playstation IMO feels more secure mid-generation than Xbox, and so didn't push the envelope as much as many folks (myself included) would have liked.

Despite that, enjoying my Pro.

 

[KainXVIII]

It's a weaker console that launched a year earlier for a cheaper price. Doesn't seem like a half measure to me it's actually pretty in-line to where I expected it to land in comparison to the One X.

Click to shrink...

Exactly

 

[John Bender]

It's the best mid-gen console they could have made (hardware wise) for $399 in 2016. I'm sure the Pro would look different for $500 in November 2017.

 

[Camells]

Well i can argue that both X1X and Pro felt like half measures and/or completely unnecessary but hey, it's just an opinion piece.

 

[Riderz1337]

Honestly, this might sound fanboyish, but I just can't support a console that has no enticing exclusives in the horizon. Make the console itself as good as you want, if you don't have the software lineup to back that up I will never touch it.

 

[ASEdouard]

Got shat on in another thread when I said it, but it's how it is. If we take the suggested retail price of both, it's 100$ difference. The Xbox One X is vastly more powerful, it has a 4K Blu-Ray Player, it had more "exclusive" features including enhanced backwards compatibility... for such a small difference in price the gap between the two mid-gen upgrade consoles is absolutely massive. Of course it really comes down to tastes for games and such, but as a piece of hardware, the Xbox One X is miles better than the Pro, more than the one year and 100$ difference would imply. Microsoft did a splendid job with this console, and it's the best console to play on right now, hands down.

Click to shrink...

Let's not get crazy either, the X has a 1.5x more powerful gpu and a faster, but still crappy, cpu. This is what one would expect with a 1 year gap and a 100$ price delta. It's very far from a generation leap. The gpu/cpu/ram of the ps4/One were multiples more powerful than the last generation, of course. Put a non Digital Foundry reading gamer in front of an X and Pro version of a game, and they wouldn't see the difference.

 

[Kudo]

Pro is one of the worst gaming purchases I've done, feels like first party output died since that.
I just hope Bloodborne 2, Demon's Souls Remaster, SOTC, TLOU2, Days Gone, GoW and Ghost of Tsushima can redeem this.

 

[Charpunk]

I wish Sony would have waited another year to put out the Pro, mainly for a better vr experience in the console space.

I've barely used mine since getting the X. The only time I have used it was to finally play through nier this past week. I'll use it again when God of War comes out.

 

[Carlius]

pro was rushed...it was obvious ms would make a more powerful console with the time they had...

 

[Mr.Deadshot]

Well PS4Pro was one year earlier and 100€ cheaper ...

 

[zuf]

Probably is but you can now pick a Pro up for at least £150 cheaper with a few games thrown in. Sony made the right call getting it out a year earlier.