It's Early Days for 4K/HDR Gaming, Microsoft Exec Says

"You have to fudge things a little bit to show the differences..."

It's still very early days for 4K and HDR gaming, according to veteran Xbox developer Albert Penello. Appearing on Major Nelson's podcast, Penello started off by saying he is surprised that the PlayStation 4 Slim and Pro models do not have a 4K Blu-ray drive. Microsoft hasn't held back in letting people know the Xbox One S is the only new console out there today with a 4K Blu-ray drive.

On the subject of 4K and HDR gaming in general, Penello said it's a good time for 4K and HDR, but it's also very early. "This is the thing I like to remind people when everybody asks: 'We're just in the beginning of this.' So games, and game developers, and TV manufacturers, we all have to get used to it," he said. "Figure this out; what works, what do customers want."

Penello went on to say that showing off 4K and HDR gaming and video content is "really hard" because you have to see the content on a supported set to see the benefits.

"Showing people what 4K and HDR looks like is really hard when you're not watching the thing in 4K or in HDR," he said. "How do we market that and be honest. You have to fudge things a little bit to show the differences, but you want to do it in a way that's honest. So even telling customers what it looks like, we have to go through that journey."

Also in the interview, Penello teased that there are some "big" announcements coming about entertainment apps and games that will support 4K and HDR.

Some of the Xbox One games that support HDR right now include Forza Horizon 3 and Gears of War 4. Check out GameSpot's roundup to see all the games that support HDR now or will in the future.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/its-early-days-for-4khdr-gaming-microsoft-exec-say/1100-6446174/

Everything is early for consoles. Only this year they discovered they can put FLOPS in them.

Yes, very honest and early Penello, without of course taking a chance to throw a jab at the competitor.

Its funny how these articles stroke people a certain way.

Just listened to the podcast and it sounds nothing to the effect of the conversation taking a dig at Sony.

It covers some talk of the nuances of HDR at its infancy. Like how many TV's require a certain HDMi output, the confusion around the formats, have to be set a certain way , require lots of fine tuning for good HDR IQ, etc...

The current space is a bit rough indeed, specially with all the 8bit sets and non-wide color gamut tv's out there with HDR branding . I can imagine as it becomes more standardized it will become more consumer and content creator friendly, newer televisions will have better/smarter implementations of HDR content, etc...

MS also but that doesn't falsify his statement.

To be honest, at times it seems like it's still early days for 1080p on consoles too... Last I heard, there were still a lot of games below 1080p on consoles.

Also, I don't really understand the push for 4k. It's probably one of the most wasteful ways of improving the graphical quality of games. The processing power 4k requires could probably be used in much better ways. If anything, I'd expect devs to try to keep the resolution lower as long as possible, considering how good 1080p is. The only explanation I can come up with is that 4k is a pretty powerful marketing term.

Streaming is the future, not 4K Blu ray.

This.

I would say 4k is a powerful marketing term but it also takes far less effort than actually tweaking a games build for the Pro/Scorpio. I'm hoping when PS4/XB1 become obsolete, developers will completely ignore 4k as a target and we'll once again need another set of mid gen updates for those who want that extra bit of image clarity.

tell me about it. i been wanting to get a new TV, and its been hell. so many things to consider, so many settings i need to check. its fucking ridiculous. 

i really hope in a year or two, all these 8 bit tvs and false HDR tvs stop being produced. because you got TV's that dont really support HDR10, yet the marketing companies have kind of says they do. its just a hellish nightmare. i also really hope Input lag is reduced. LG tvs have horrible input lag for instance.

Ooh, good point about tweaking. 4k support actually probably is less effort than using the same processing power for improving graphics in other ways, so that's actually a pretty strong point for 4k. Also, that wish is probably in vain. By the time the next generation (or equivalent) arrives, 4k TVs are going to be very common if only because by that time, it'll be hard to find any half-decent non-4k TVs. 4k games will probably be the standard because 4k TVs will be the standard. I'm already seeing mostly 4k TVs being advertised, and they're already quite affordable.