Here’s the Digital Foundry article on PS4 and PS4 Pro load times as well as info on putting in an SSD.
I think this is a recent development. Last fall maybe?
It’s a new to this year feature I think.
I absolutely found it worth it to upgrade to an SSD. A tiny, old 80gb one I had made a nice difference for Bloodborne.
Yep. Moral to the story, if all you care about is load times, get a SSD. Of course the console refreshes offer tons of other advantages, and the PS4 Pro at least is priced at a level where you’d have to be crazy to buy the stock PS4.
It’s not all I care about, but it’s top of the list. Guess I’ll look into that, thanks.
Hmmm… not sure I agree with that necessarily. You can get some really good deals on the standard PS4. I bought an Uncharted 4 slim for $230 new for my son for his birthday just a month ago. You can do even better pre-owned. I was going to upgrade myself to a Pro and give him the original, but I was looking at like $150 more. It didn’t seem worth it.
This is the same conundrum people with have now with a $250 Xbox One S and a $500 Xbox One X.
Well that depends on pricing, PS4 baseline was $299 until very recently when it dropped due to that gold deal. At $230 it’s tough to argue for the PS4 Pro unless you aren’t price-sensitive.
I mean, if I was going to buy a console I would certainly get the Pro. I’m probably buying a $329 ipad to use while taking a poop because my old perfectly working fine toilet iPad4 isn’t getting iOS11. But it isn’t an obvious slam dunk now.
I use a external drive for PS4, it works extremely well. Completely transparent to me.
Is sweet to add 2TB to the PS4 just by connecting a usb drive.
Well, yeah. The 970 in my system cost more than 60% of what an XBX costs, and it’s already outclassed. PC gamers throw money at their hobby like monkeys throw poop.
But I’ll still buy one because I like kicking back with a controller rather than extended sessions w/ mouse & keyboard. Eh, who am I kidding, my back likes it better. Getting old sucks.
Ha! Yes, the enthusiast price level is always very different from the rest of the market. :)
The PS4 was getting strong price pressure for a couple months before the official Gold price drop. I was watching them closely because of the birthday. I think $299 is the upper end for the average consumer now whereas it used to be around $199. Inflation and all that. These Pro consoles are going to be enthusiast devices only for the foreseeable future.
As pointed out, the XBox One S is $200 and plays games just fine if you are not worried about 4K. If you are price sensitive and leaning towards the XBox, that’s a fine price. Just like you could go for a base PS4 which is still a totally valid choice to play Playstation games.
If you aren’t that price sensitive and want 4K, the $100 difference between the consoles, reflecting raw power differences, are not likely going to be the main factor.I don’t see the $100 as a show stopper if you’ve got money to invest into a Pro / X. especially if the X also gives you the 4K Blu Ray on top “for free”.
Ultimately though, the games/apps and where your friends are are always the criteria we come back to for consoles. Answer those 2 questions first, then find the console the matches your requirements and budget.
Wendelius
That’s where I think Microsoft has a problem right now. Kids especially (teens) are mostly on PS4 or they’re being left behind by their friends.
The cheapest new xbone on Amazon is $247, not $200. And while it’s a generally acceptable experience, it is usually sub-1080p and framerates/times often vary too. The PS4 is certainly a better intro-level console, assuming all your friends aren’t on xbox live already and you don’t want any of the handful of xbone exclusives.
For me, the PS4 Pro is the first true 1080p-capable console. That’s why I tend to view it as the lowest-end product I would consider buying. But I’m certainly not a mass-market consumer.
Of course you’ll buy a 4K TV eventually; your existing TV will break and you won’t even be able to find a cheapo 1080p at that point, it will be all cheapo 4Ks.
But yes, I take your point and am in the same camp, practically speaking. My perfectly good 1080p TV is 2-3 years old, and I have absolutely no plans to upgrade it. I’ll be quite disappointed if it needs to be replaced in the next 4-5 years, so 4K will be a non-factor for me for the foreseeable future of this console generation.
I have a 60" 1080p TV in my living room too. Once they release a 60" 4k TV with adaptive sync and HDR at <$1000, I’ll probably replace it and move the old one to my bedroom.
1080p plasma in my living room. An OLED 65" 4k with adaptive sync under $3k would be an insta buy but otherwise I am pretty happy for now.
Shit like this doesn’t help though. I have avoided gsync/freesync/whatever in favor of a mandated standard that works with both cards and that should happen with the new HDMI standard.
Every day I bounce back between 3 1200p monitors and a 55" 4k TV and it’s getting harder to stomach the pixels. Now that my laptop is 4k as well a reasonably priced 4k adaptive sync monitor would probably break me. I might even pay a premium for 144hz, but not $1k+ for a 27" monitor like the new Acer will probably be. Probably.
But…Xbox has two X’es in it? What kind of magic spelling is this name?
It won’t. But rejoice! All consoles are AMD, and adaptive sync/freesync is a VESA standard already.
Bleh, I want nvidia to adopt the new variable frame rate in the HDMI specs. It is, apparently, optional so yeah, they will probably not want to adopt it. And I really don’t want to go back to an ATI card.
Xbone always had one X. Obviously they’re canonizing that.
Uhhh… no they’re not all AMD.