With all the past talk/rumors about PS4k and a full 4k PS4 console, as well as PS stating there will be no more PS4 consoles for a "substantial period of time", plus some of the "odd" Pro hardware details, along with "PS5" predictions for 2018, could the PS4k (PS4k Pro, PS4 Pro 4k) still be on the way?

One thing that seems a little bit odd about Pro is the power supply size. Most of the info on the net says the OG PS4's had a 230w-250w PSU, yet only pulled a max of 150w when gaming. PS4 (Slim) has a 165w PSU, yet only pulls a max of 90w when gaming. Pro has a 310w PSU, but only uses a max of 160w when gaming in "4k". Why overbuild the power supply so much so on the Pro, when clearly a smaller power supply would have worked? (Maybe the larger power supply was necessary if they decided to go with the rumored, more powerful version of the Neo instead...?)

Could the PS4k rumors early in 2016 have actually been the next console iteration after the Pro? The more powerful Neo with a 4k BD drive?

I believe PS could potentially make a PS4k based on their existing PS4/Pro platform. (Extreme hardware/tech savvy individuals feel free to explain why this isn't possible if you know its not)

With Pro it uses the same updated 16nm, 4 core X2 Jaguar CPU (@2.1GHz), but adds another entire PS4 GPU, leading to a 18CU X2 Pitcairn (Polaris) GPU (@911MHz). Why couldn't PS just take the Pro APU, shrink it to "12nm" (or smaller in the near future), and add another PS4 Pitcairn GPU again? This way you would end up with an APU consisting of a 4 core X2 Jaguar CPU (@2.3GHz?), and a 18CU X3 Pitcairn (Polaris) GPU (@900MHz?). This should give you around 6Tflops (6.2?) as well and would also fit in the power envelope needed for a 310w power supply. The Pro shell may potentially need to be made slightly larger to accomodate a bigger heatsink and fan, but no big deal really.   (4 cores X3 CPU? 12 GB RAM? I dunno, maybe? It's besides the point)

I realize there would be good reasons to just move on to newer, more powerful and efficient chip designs, but PS has made it very very clear that using the same (older) tech and and similar software is their goal going forward to make things as easy for dev's as possible, becuase it's mostly about the games.

The reason I think this may be the route they take is also becuase this "theory" if you wish to call it that, explains many things. Why the clearly oversized power supply in the Pro console? Why the lack of 4k BD drive? Why the specific mention of no more PS4 upgrades for some time? Why the rumor of a full 4k PS4 console not all that long before the Pro announcement? Why the "PS5" 2018 rumor? Why the "thinner PS4" rumor so soon after a recent slim and Pro launch? Why Scorpio will be at least 6 Tflops? Why the Scorpio rumors of 6.2Tflops at launch? Why did PS hold off on showing Pro at E3?

The more I think about it, the more likely I think it is that PS would like to wait for 7nm before moving on to true, next gen hardware. Since that option may not be available until late 2019/2020, why not launch a fully 4k capable PS4 in late 2018 during the holidays? This would give a full 2 year gap between Pro and PS4k, and a potential 2 year gap until PS5. It would also allow PS to better compete with Scorpio on a hardware/marketing front.

From a strategy point of view it also makes a lot of sense. If PS would have launched the more powerful Neo, PS4k, than XB would have just bumped up the specs of Scorpio and PS would have to wait 3-4 years to have another chance at taking the "performance crown" again. This way, by waiting to show Pro, and seeing what XB had planned for Scorpio, PS would be able to launch a slightly "underpowered" Pro now, but affordable, making XB think PS is weak. Then, let Scorpio launch late 2017, and start leaking PS4k rumors early in 2018, and show it at E3, and take back the crown. (If necessary, since Scorpio may not stifle PS4/Pro sales, in which case a 4k BD drive could just be added to Pro, so forget PS4k and just wait until PS5 around 2019/2020)

I think that could be why Scorpio may turn out to be 6.2Tflops or more like the rumors say, and may also have an updated/upgraded CPU (Excavator/Ryzen) because XB probably knows that PS could just add another GPU again and end up around 6Tflops, and XB does not want to go to all the trouble of screaming "the most powerful console ever made" to simply see that crown ripped away just 6 months later.

Maybe I'm on to something, maybe I'm out to left field. What do you think?

I think they'd probably piss off their Pro fanbase and their vanilla fanbase even more if they did that. I think they'd release the PS5 before a PS4K, honestly. It's a safer approach

As a Power Supply begins to age, the maximum wattage it can output decreases, these devices are meant to last for many many many many many years... Plus a higher quality Power Supply allows for the Power Supply to better provide cleaner power, removing ripples, noise, spikes, drops etc' in delivery.

Plus the console has a range of peripherals, the USB ports need to provide a certain level of power as well, exacerbated when they are all occupied... And it needs to account for the variability in HDD power consumption.

Plus, not all games push a console to it's maximum wattage, there will likely be games in the future that push the console harder which results in power consumption that is significantly higher than when those wattage tests were undertaken.

Plus... Not all Power Supplys can actually output their rated wattage... Some are more efficient at a certain load and temperature. And Sony likely accounted for that as well.

I wouldn't try and form a conspiracy theory out of it all to lead yourself to believe Sony is building a Pro successor.

Yes competing with yourself with so much hardware worked so well for SEGA. Stupid if they did that. Already silly with Vita,PSVR,PS4,PS4 Pro,PS4 slim and in some parts PS3 still. Also what killed Apple until Jobs skimmed it back down in 97.

Since there were two PS3 revisions, I don't see why Sony can't do two with the PS4.

If they were to do so, I think they'd only add a 4K BD player (two both SKUs). I actually can see them doing this this year. Better to focus on price/value for the competition (Scorpio). $100-150 less than Scorpio?

Another hardware config is probably not practical. Especially if they were to further upgrade the GPU but keep the same CPU. A GPUx3 @ 900MHz would be 6.22TF.

Your correct, and I was aware of this, but that was taken into account when i wrote this. Even if the "4k" games go from drawing 160 watts to 180, which would be a fair increase, plus variable mass storage power req's, and VR, then a 275 watt PSU would still be enough. If you compare power consumption levels of previous consoles to their rated max wattage, Pro's PSU does seem oversized, and not by just a few watts. To say its crappy quality and needed to be larger doesn't really make sense either in comparison to all of the other PS4 consoles and their PSU's. 

I'm not trying to convince myself, or anyone, of anything. I've just been noticing all of these things and this possibility seemed to connect the dots to some degree and I wondered what others thought about it or what insights they may have. 

This is not competeing with yourself. These are options within a unified ecosystem so people can choose the device that is right for them. Sonys internal competition issue is Android vs PlayStation OS, Play Store vs PlayStation Store, Ultra 4K vs PlayStation Video 4K. 

Sega's problem was tio many new console generations to quick, which all had exclusive games and peripherals. Sony having a multiple models of the PS4 is a very different situation. 

Back to the O.P. 

I think they have a PS4 Premium in the works, but for slightly different reasons. PS4 Pro was just taking advantage of the move from 28nm to 14nm. With PS4 successful, Sony wanted to see how the market would react if they did a more powerful version of the console when the tech was ready, instead of just doing a slimmer cheap model. In the past we would have got PS4 Slim, and that would be it. This time Sony gave people an option, and I love it. 

I think PS4 Premium, will launch in 2019, and will be a native 4K PS4 option. At this point I think Sony and Microsoft will be trading blows over who has the most powerful console on nearly a yearly bases. I think we will see Gran Turismo 7, Grand Theft Auto 5, and The Last of Us Part II, launch as optimized PS4 Premium games, and I expect the launch to go much smoother than the PS4 Pro launch. Gran Turismo's engine is already built to scale, I have no doubt that Rockstar and Naughty Dog will be building there new engines around scalability. With expereince from PS4 to PS4 Pro, and new engines built with scalable consoles in mind, the transition and launch should be a lot prettier this time around.

I think Sony still believes in generations, but only when the leap in power justifies it. I think in reality Microsoft feels the same. We won't have enough of a techical leap in 2019 - 2020 to produce a true next gen, so with that I think we will see both companies bring out very refined 4K version of the current gen consoles. Then they will both launch true next gen devices in ~2023 with 25 - 30TFLOP APU's, 128GB of RAM, and m.2 NVMe Storage.

It is. It's just called the ps5.

I'm not trying to say it's crappy.

But when a device has a larger base power consumption, then the efficiency curve will be different.
Most decent PSU's are at their most efficient at around about 50-60% load.... At a set temperature.

So if you had a device that consumes 100w of power, then a 200w PSU should be the sweet spot.
But if your device consumes 50w of power than a 100w PSU could be the sweet spot... So even though power consumption is only 50w different, the PSU is 100w different.

Sony would have more intimate knowledge about the Playstation 4's power consumption and PSU efficiency than I would and would have accounted for all that.

Regardless... If Sony was to release another console, chances are it will use a new PSU anyway.

There is no sense in making 3-4 or more SKU's for a single home console with different chipsets, it makes for a huge headache both for consumers and developers and it makes pricing a dubious affair at best.