• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

PS4 Pro PR has been terrible

I have the Pro preordered but if I told you truthfully why it's because I've recently gotten a big pay rise and literally did it on impulse whilst walking through the mall on pay day.

I can't tell you what I expect to gain from the Pro as a 1080p TV owner, which the vast majority of PS4 owners are and probably the majority of Pro owners will be, because I really don't know.

I know what it can do, I know that a 4+ teraflop console could produce significant IQ improvements and performance boosts in all games over the base PS4, I know that for the price of the Pro the IQ and performance boosts that are possible are easily worth it...

But whether I am actually going to get those boosts I have no idea. I don't know which games are going to give me what bar Tomb Raider, a game I have no interest in.

If I was a 4K TV owner then the answer to these questions would be fairly straight forward: in most games going forward and some going back, I'll have a much more appropriate output for my TV.

So do Sony care about 1080p Pro users? If they don't, they need to say this is not for you and you should not have any expectations. If they do, as they should considering the market and my genuine prediction that >50% of people buying a Pro will not have 4K TVs, then they need to get serious and give us some bloody details. You sold it to me already because I'm an idiot, sell it to everyone else, make us NEED a PS4 Pro regardless of what TV we own because with the hardware in that box you CAN do that.

There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that doubling the power of a god damn console will give them significantly better graphical experiences. The fact it is even a question for 1080p users is imo failure I am actually impressed Sony have even managed to make, I didn't think it would be possible.
 

DjRalford

Member
Wait until 1st November, and stuff will begin to be revealed, everyone is being made to stay stum at the moment until the FQ2 details go out on 1st November.

Then the floodgates will open.
 

Stranya

Member
I agree that they have done a terrible job of upselling the benefits to 1080 owners. They're pushing 4K so hard. Personally I'd prefer better performance.
 

killroy87

Member
It's an incredibly hard device to market well without sounding like your shitting on the current PS4. Doesn't help that a lot of the best features won't be visible on regular displays.
 
Wait until 1st November, and stuff will begin to be revealed, everyone is being made to stay stum at the moment until the FQ2 details go out on 1st November.

Then the floodgates will open.

Sorry for my ignorance but what is FQ2? If we are waiting for a media dump then that would make sense because what we have so far is shockingly bad imo.
 

Mediking

Member
Pro is meh to a guy like me who likes his PS4 graphics and is content with them. If the Pro was cheaper....
 

Guerrilla

Member
Yeah. That is why I decided to wait and purchase Scorpio...Too much of the unknown. Can't be spending $400.

Yeah pretty much the same. I usually buy every new piece of gaming Hardware, however sony has failed to explain to me why this is supposed to be exciting.
 

OmahaG8

Member
They're trying to make sure the public sees that VR can stand on its own with the original PS4. At least that's my take. The week before almost assuredly will have waves of information.
 
Pro is meh to a guy like me who likes his PS4 graphics and is content with them. If the Pro was cheaper....

I don't think he price is that bad especially given all the trade in deals, I really think they need to give us evidence that regardless of your TV this is DOUBLING the power of your PS4 with respective results in game for patched titles.

Imagine AMD marketing a GPU double the power of a predecessor and telling you that it will run some games better at 4K but no promises at any other resolution...
 

kyser73

Member
Apart from the announcement & Cerny's interviews the PR hasn't really started yet, and I wouldn't expect it to until the 7-10 days leading into the launch.

Its challenging messaging - not impossible by any means - to convey 2 consoles + PSVR, and I've commented on some pretty obvious & straightforward approaches Sony could take around the PS Family concept which would allow for combined and specific platform messaging.

If 2 or 3 days prior we're still asking these questions then there's an issue, but remember this isn't a 'new' platform launch it's a more powerful alternative to the main seller so expecting the same kind of hype you get prior to a new gen launch simply won't be there IMO.
 

leroidys

Member
I agree, but the pricepoint is good. As someone who has been mooching off of my roommates PS4 all this time and is finally jumping in, it was an easy decision to choose the Pro over the Slim at a $100 premium.
 

Flandy

Member
I still want to know if every game will need to have a Pro Enhanced mode or support for this will just drop 18 months from now
 
Haven't seen a PS4 Pro ad so far here in Germany. Yet the Pro is the best selling console since its announcement - by far - according to amazon.de, that is.

Maybe their PR is bad, I don't know, but whatever other measures of marketing the new console they do, it seems to work out for them.
 

Crayon

Member
On a 1080p tv, patched games will be rendered at higher and then scaled back down to 1080. I'm not sure this is so hard to imagine.
 

breakfuss

Member
These threads have become a weekly occurance now. And this is GAF of all places. If a good amount of us don't get what's going on with this thing that isn't good. I really, really wanted this when the rumors began to leak. And I'm still trying to convince myself to trade up to it. But I just can't justify it when the benefits are so elusive. Instead I bought an Xbox S to complement my OG PS4 lol when that money would've been in Sony's hands. But we'll see. I'll remain open minded.
 
Dude if you got a pay raise get a 4K TV. 4K + HDR does not disappoint, even if you can't afford a top-of-the-line HDR 1000 set. Snobs will say otherwise but seriously you won't be disappointed.

And I'm hyped as fuck about Pro. Can't wait to play Skyrim and Mordor in 4K.
 
D

Deleted member 325805

Unconfirmed Member
I'm more than happy with how games look on my PS4, I'm not happy with 30fps (and let's be real, it's rarely even 30 locked) and from what I can tell the Pro offers no substantial performance improvements at 1080p so it's dead to me.
 
IMO Sony is smart for knowing that the PS4 Pro crowd doesnt actually need to be pandered to by marketing teams because potential buyers have likely already made their mind up about whether they'll purchase the product. Harcore gamers are an educated lot. They do their research. They want bang for their buck. Why should Sony spend millions and millions of dollars trying to sway a group that they've likely already reached?
 

daman824

Member
A ps4 pro version of a game and a ps4 version are going to look almost indistinguishable on a 1080p set if the only difference is resolution. People saying "it'll downsample and you'll get the same benifit. Games will look leagues better." Need to get real.
 
Yeah, I agree. I have one pre-ordered, and I've actually already offloaded my original PS4 on Ebay so there's no turning back now, but my feet are still a little cold. Hearing that it's going to do absolutely nothing for my old, unpatched PS4 games was a real blow; I mean, I wasn't expecting a magical 60FPS lock across the board, but I thought it'd at least get games that hover down in the 20s closer to 30, y'know?

I'm mainly just buying one because I like having new toys, I suppose. I'm not going to upgrade from my 1080p Plasma for a few years yet, and I'm mainly a PC gamer, so I'm pretty much solely in this for future PS4 exclusives with better performance.
 

kyser73

Member
It's an incredibly hard device to market well without sounding like your shitting on the current PS4. Doesn't help that a lot of the best features won't be visible on regular displays.

That's a relatively straightforward message to convey. You'll always have outlier reactions that sound loud, especially negative ones, but something like:

PS4: the best place to play, amazing library of multiplats & exclusives, now even smaller, quieter, better value etc

PS4 Pro: want something more? As the most powerful PlayStation ever, the Pro offers the complete PS4 catalog + from October all* games will be enhanced to display better on both HD & UHD TVs, bringing you superior 1080p gaming & the world of 4K HDR to you for $399

PSVR: Be a future explorer in new worlds of interactive entertainment, with PS4 or PS4 Pro you can be on the cutting edge of digital entertainment.

No-one gets upset by that.
 

kobu

Member
Are people seriously still asking if they will see improvements on a 1080p display? I feel like I'm living in fucking bizzaro world I swear.
 

Crayon

Member
It's going to be a tough sell for most people.

I'm not sold one one, myself. But the benefit of using one on a 1080p set seems perfectly clear: The higher internal resolution of the pro patched games will scale back down to 1080. While this may be confusing to average consumers, I though gaffers would be able to grasp this better than the general public.
 

Loudninja

Member
Are people seriously still asking if they will see improvements on a 1080p display? I feel like I'm living in fucking bizzaro world I swear.
The FAQ laid all this stuff out I dont get it.

Eurogamer and devs explain this as well.

The Witness
* When using PS4 Pro with a 4k display, we will render at 1440p or possibly higher, all while keeping a consistent 60 frames per second. This image will then be upscaled to 4k, and we will draw text, menus, and other UI at native 4k resolution. (This is similar to what happens on the base PS4, where we render the 3D scene at 900p, then upscale to 1080p and draw UI at 1080p). We might be able to achieve resolutions higher than 1440p based on various engineering tradeoffs (for example, if we boost the resolution of the main scene to a greater degree than we boost the resolution of the reflections in water, which tend to be distorted anyway. Also, we’ll evaluate checkerboard rendering — we’re not sure if it’s the right way to go for this game, but we’ll see.) We’ll post again when we finalize these specs.

* When using PS4 Pro with a display that is 1080p or lower, we will render the scene at 1080p (instead of the old 900p), and increase antialiasing quality from 2x to 4x MSAA, again while keeping a solid 60 frames per second. We are exploring additional visual quality increases, like increased streaming distance for high-resolution meshes, or decreasing the noticeability of the fade-in between faraway LODs and high-res close-up meshes. Again, we’ll post details when this is finalized!
We’re also working on HDR support. Here in the office we just got a new LG B6P television, which is very bright and has low black levels, providing a lot of dynamic range, and it’s been fun so far tweaking the look of the game on HDR displays like this.

http://the-witness.net/news/2016/09/were-doing-a-ps4-pro-patch-here-are-the-technical-details/
 

Humdinger

Member
I think the info is out there -- we've had many threads on it here. There are clear benefits for 1080p owners (though not nailed down to specifics, since it depends on the developers to a large degree). I agree that Sony has done a poor job of disseminating it. I've had to turn to other sources to get clear on it myself.
 

0racle

Member
It's a console revision that requires the features being marketed by developers. There is only so much sony can do. They said everything about the specifications, now we wait and see what can be done with it. Besides first party, sony can't really showcase that yet.
 
Are people seriously still asking if they will see improvements on a 1080p display? I feel like I'm living in fucking bizzaro world I swear.

If posters in GAF are having trouble understanding the PS4 Pro then it will definitely not bode well with general public.

Which is why the messaging has been pretty terrible.
 

daman824

Member
Are people seriously still asking if they will see improvements on a 1080p display? I feel like I'm living in fucking bizzaro world I swear.
You'll see improvements if you look at the two systems running the same game side to side. But it's not some huge game changer on the same level as simply playing the ps4 pro version on a 4k set.

I can't believe people are trying to get others to spend $400 on a new system when they don't even have a 4k set to take any real advantage of the system
 

Crayon

Member
You know what would make it a LOT less hard to imagine? Some comparison screenshots...

That's true there's been very little of that. I would imagine the difference in quality would be lost on 90% of the public, though. It's a only a moderate increase.
 
You know when they say "dropping the ball"? That's what happened. Too much newer and exciting things are happening in this industry to even care for Pro anymore.

Sorry Sony, you lost me.
 

Ardenyal

Member
Truth.

I still have the thing preordered but I'm not picking it up on day 1. I will have to wait for user impressions to know what the fuck is the point of getting a pro if you can only go 1080p.
 
That's a relatively straightforward message to convey. You'll always have outlier reactions that sound loud, especially negative ones, but something like:

PS4: the best place to play, amazing library of multiplats & exclusives, now even smaller, quieter, better value etc

PS4 Pro: want something more? As the most powerful PlayStation ever, the Pro offers the complete PS4 catalog + from October all* games will be enhanced to display better on both HD & UHD TVs, bringing you superior 1080p gaming & the world of 4K HDR to you for $399

PSVR: Be a future explorer in new worlds of interactive entertainment, with PS4 or PS4 Pro you can be on the cutting edge of digital entertainment.

No-one gets upset by that.

"You're hired ", Sony.

I'm hoping we get a week of articles on the ps blog like we did with PSVR. Might not be mainstream but it should help explain to the core what it's all about.
 

spekkeh

Banned
They/you are so accustomed to console war marketing they don't know what to do when the only one they're warring with is themselves.
 

Seloth

Banned
To be honest I am more hyped for the switch than the Pro.

I cancelled my preorder as I don't think there will be problems sourcing a unit if I really want one soon after launch.

I wish there was some hard data on improvements though.
 

RoKKeR

Member
What PR? I swear outside of that weird reveal conference there has been almost nothing. Maybe I'm just not seeing it.

(I agree OP)
 
Now that most of my initial hopes for the thing have been dashed (60FPS for everything! Nope. OK, but better framerates for older games, though, right? Nope), my biggest worry is that the thing's going to sound like a jet engine taking off. I know it's a widespread problem for original PS4s, but my old PS4 was always one of the good ones. It was never louder than my PS3 Slim, except in certain circumstances like the menu in Assassin's Creed Unity. I'm dreading ending up with a crazy loud Pro.
 
What PR? I swear outside of that weird reveal conference there has been almost nothing. Maybe I'm just not seeing it.

(I agree OP)

Totally. I presume they want to give PSVR its moment in the limelight.

If we don't see a serious uptick in PS4 Pro promotion by the weekend, we can assume Sony are as confused as the general public by the thing. (a thing a really want, just to be clear)
 
Top Bottom