What is the reason behind the PS4K?

[potato_hamster]

teigaga said:

 

Yikes!! Please read the OP. You've simply derailed into why you think a PS4k would fail. The question is why would sony introduce it in the event it is real (several independent, reliable sources have said it is-Eurogamer being the most respectable). You rant implies that sony can see into the future and will only make decisions based on certified success when we've infact seem them and all manufacturers make bad decision which may have looked good on paper.

A few important points. 
-No one is expecting PS4k to have games as exclusives. 
-At no point is anyone assuming that there will not also be a PS4 slim. Sony will replace the current model with a slim for sure.

I have a full understanding of how both console cycles and profit margines work. The introduction of cheaper, slim "high margin" SKUs is also met with $50-100 price cuts. These pricecuts reduce the profit margins of the systems significantly,  close to where they were before. The real gain is partially in the higher sales which the lower price provides. This exact same mechanic can exist with a high end SKU. Use whatever economy allows for the cheaper slim model  (DIE Shrink?) to instead bump up the specs and skip the $50 price cut. Profit Margins remain the same but sales increase. Hell, if your gimmick is strong enough dare to increase the price. This can exist alongside a PS4 Slim just as Nintendo have the 2DS, 3DS XL and N3DS.

 http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-in-theory-playstation-4k-is-real-but-why-is-sony-making-it

This high end SKU may not be mass market price but its a more compelling means to get people to double dip versus a slimmer console and it introduces a new market for people looking for a 4k device; soon to be many people- whether they're gamers is irrelevant when the PS4 is cheaper and more known then any 4k bluray player.

Regarding 4k TVs, how many people to do you think owned a 1080p TV in 2005 when PS3 was announced? 4k TVs are obviously not in tons of homes but they will be and sooner then you think. Their sales increased last year exponentially and they're only now hitting mass market prices. The industry forcast that 50% of US homes will own one by 2020. Literally the first things that pop up when you google 4k tv sales figures lol. Go into any store and they're the primary sets being pushed, soon they will replace all 1080p sets above a certain size. Sony could very easily swoop in and own that market. They'll miss out if they wait til 4k is already the standard.

Everything you said about it not being financially beneficial for Developers is fair, yet the exact same comments could have been made about the N3DS. Yet it exists, yet it was successfull. How many developers will support a more powerful SKU is still up in the air, but it will have first party support and some decent third party support that is a garuntee. Third parties even supported the PSmove for a while and that was a flop. Sony only need to get a few key thrid party games on board each year for it be a big selling point. Lets say PS4k launched last year, If sony could say Uncharted 4, The Devision, Final Fantasy XV, Fifa and Titanfall 2 would also have superior versions on PS4k that'd be more then enough to sell the system. Lastly lets not ignore the automated process of 4k upscalling to improve every single title for those who intend to get 4k tvs. Ultimately its irrelevant because that means we're assuming that sony can only make good decisions.

No. My post is why Sony isn't stupid enough to do what many people are assuming they will be.  What is the reason behind the PS4K that has enhanced hardware specs for games? There is none. That's my point.

- If no one is expecting the PS4k to have exclusives than the extra processing power will not be supported by third parties. There is literally no incentive for them to do so. See the N64 expansion pak, the PSP spec improvements, and the new 3DS. In all of those cases the vast majority of games that were released after that point did not take advantage of the hardware in any way. And you probably shouldn't act as if the new 3DS was successful, since the vast majority (over 95% of games since release ) don't take advantage of the added performance, and outside of the release window, has done absolutely nothing to inccrease 3DS sales. In fact regular 3DS outsell the new 3DS 2 or 3 to 1 to this day. In fact they sold more 3DSs at $200, then they sold new 3DSs at $200 over the same time frame. It appears people just don't see the added value, and it's not hard to see why. There is literally no incentive for third parties to support consoles like this. The Divison isn't selling any more copies if it's running at 60 fps as opposed to 30 fps. Sure some might buy it on PS4 instead of X1, but that's all the same money to the developer. That's an awful lot of effort to put in for literally zero reward. It is 100% wishful thinking to hope third parties would throw money away investing in developing games for these added specs for no reward.

- Doing a die shrink inviolves optimizing the process for that partucilar APU. Developiong a new more powerful APU would require doing almost all of the work of that die shrink all over again.  It's not that simple. It can take months of development to get acceptable yields. That's why when they develop a process of shrinking dies they don't just automatically start making all chips at that size. Also, you need to consider that a 4K APU would undoubtedly be more complex, use more power, and likely produce far more heat, and therefore, they may have to increase the die size, not decrease it, in order to produce it at acceptable yields.

- Yes when the PS3 came out, most people didn't have a 1080p TV, but most did have 720p HDTVs that would be a noticable improvement over the 480p output of the PS2. That's probably why most of the games at the time were optimized for 720p, and that's probably why 1080p only really became the objective with the PS4 and X1 and even then they're not really hitting the mark. Now you want to improve the specs and get them to render at 4 times the resolution they're struggling with now. Okay. How much do you want this PS4K to cost? Because if its going to play games at native 4K is going to cost a lot more than $400. The APU alone should cost at least that.

Besides, how would they be missing the 4K market at all if they make a PS4 slim with a 4K ready blu-ray player and HDMI port capable of playing 4K blu-rays, and maybe upscaling game video output to 4K, or maybe make some VR output a little smoother? Ohh right. They wouldn't. This is what Sony is probably making, in a slim for factor, with a higher profit margin, because that is what makes good business sense.