Shane
Three years ago to the day you were probably lined up outside your favourite video games or electronics retailer excited to get your hands on a new and shiny PlayStation 4.
November the 15th, 2013 saw the launch of ‘next-gen’ gaming as we have now become accustomed to with gaming graphics that were so life-like they were out of this world.
Most of us didn’t care too much about what was under the hood of the blue glowing black box – we just wanted to be wowed out of our socks with some stellar PlayStation gaming goodness. And we were.
Fast forward to 2016 where the scope of consumer entertainment has changed dramatically. No longer are we settling for 1280 x 720 for our favourite TV Shows, Movies and Video Games.
Also the way in which we watched and played all of the above saw a swift revolution into streaming as Fiber connections took hold and become the norm for most.
We as gamers demanded more. Games got crisper, more indepth and even virtualised. PlayStation saw this and rose tot the challenge. Behold the PlayStation Pro 4.
With 4K Gaming at the ready the PlayStation Pro 4 (PS4 Pro) not only gives us the visual feast that we craved for as 4K TVs became more affordable.
The processing power and on board memory also got an overhaul (naturally the extra grunt was needed for the upscale in graphic output) to 8GB RAM and an AMD ‘Jaguar’ Processor with 8 cores, making the PS4 Pro capable of a GPU of 4.20 Teraflops.
The eye candy, whether gaming or streaming video content is handled by a AMD Radeon graphics engine.
It doesn’t stop there though.
The aesthetics of the console itself also had a make over. Grilled in a tri-grill case which aides in ventilation and for me, reminiscent to it’s much beloved predecessor the PlayStation 2. A change on how the Console is manually powered on and a decision to move the light bar coincided with a slight adjustment to the PS4 Pro Controller also, now, boasting it’s own light bar above the Touch Sensor and light grey finish on the D-Pad and Dual Thumbsticks.
Size wise the PS4 Pro is about the same height and very close to the same weight as the original PlayStation 4.
PlayStation have updated most of their current library of games with a 4K (1080p) patch and third party devs such as Square Enix, EA Games and more are also following suit.
If you own a 4K TV and have made the move to a PS4 Pro, previously owning a PS4 then absolutely, like us you will notice the difference in what you see on the screen aswell as gaming performance.
If for some inexplicable reason you have not had a PS4 yet, then the Pro is obviously the way to go now.
There has been a debate amongst gamers as to whether the Pro is what the PS4 should have been on launch back in 2013. It seems to some that Sony had an oversight on the consumer entertainment market and released the Pro to get up to speed.
Myself, I do not think that this a right way to look at it. Back in 2013 4K TVs were expensive. Hell expensive. While they are predominantly becoming the norm now, back then PlayStation gamers just wanted the upgrade from the PS3. And that’s what Sony did and we all loved it.
It is also a market norm for consoles to have three to four years before a slimmer or revamped version is released. Going further than that console lifecycles used to be around every 5 years before the next model, doubling in performance was launched.
The traditional 5 year lifecycles have changed and we are seeing more of a re-release of the same console with extra additions and upgrades. The PS4 Pro is exactly that.
The PlayStation Pro is a must as a starting point if you are looking at having a PlayStation Xmas this year. For those that already have a PS4, but do not own a 4K TV yet, might be best to stick with the PS4, for now.
If you have a PS4 and do own a 4K TV I just have one question… why have you not gone Pro yet?