Gadgetory

sony has finally revealed the PlayStation neo now known as the PlayStation 4 Pro and it's kind of a mixed bag let's go over what we learned at the conference the pro will be coming out this year on November 10th and to be at a price point of $399 way below what anyone was expecting and I'll be shipping out with a one terabyte hard drive now what exactly is the pro offering that you don't get with a regular ps4 well the big thing being pushed is 4k gaming and HDR though it's also been announced that HDR will be coming to all ps4 systems through a firmware update sometime next week now it's important to note that during the entire press conference not once was the term native 4k ever used which likely means the vast majority of games released on ps4 Pro will be at a resolution below 4k that is then up scaled and polished up with various tricks though that base resolution should still be well above what we see on regular PS fours now this isn't to say games won't look great on the pro because seeing games even in lightly upscaled 4k resolution is gonna be better than what the regular ps4 has just look at the demos we got for horizon zero dawn and Mass Effect Andromeda which look gorgeous with their ps4 pro settings now one of the most interesting aspects of the pro is not only does it offer 4k but it'll also be offering some improvements for select games even when being run on 1080 basically on a dev by dev basis games can be made to have a 4k mode and a 1080p mode with the 1080p mode balancing out the lower resolution with other graphical upgrades like super sampling with examples being given for games like shadow of Mordor Paragon and the upcoming for honor and this is actually really cool provided enough devs jump on it though it's a little annoying more talk was focused on graphic effects and not framerate now one area that it does look like the pro is going to be a big upgrade for but Sony didn't spend a lot of time on is the psvr the main example being the game Farpoint having double the pixel density which might just mean the pro is a necessary upgrade for those you interested in Sony's VR headset now as for some downsides this thing is just butt ugly looking like a triple stack version of the ps4 slim which I'm also just not a fan of and as for an actual functional downside the pro will not be supporting UHD blu-ray which is just downright bizarre when you consider that the Xbox 1s does and blu-ray is literally Sony's thing if you're on a 4k TV you'll still be able to make use of 4k streaming services like Netflix and even YouTube but if you want to use physical media then that's just a big no as an option for someone's first PlayStation 4 the pro makes a pretty strong case thanks to its price as an upgrade for people that already own ps4 s though it's less clear it might be worth it if you own a 4k TV or want to use psvr at its best but if not yeah I guess it also doubles as a handy ramp or doorstop or something man this thing is ugly