Does anyone here use their home theater for gaming? I have an X-Box one that I basically purchased for Forza 6. It is still the only game that I own, and I am OK with that. However, this upcoming Project Scorpio has me excited (and I don’t even have a 4k set yet!). Although, when playing an updated 4k game with a 1080p set, gamers will still see an improvement because Project Scorpio employs supersampling technology, rendering games at a higher-than-1080p resolution before downscaling to 1080p.
Supersampling will help remove all forms jagged edged that you are used to seeing when rendering the game at the displays native resolution. Finally, you can have smoother, more realistic gaming with games that are built for Scorpio.
For games that aren’t updated to support 4K, the extra horsepower in Project Scorpio will automatically run games better than the Xbox One, without needing to enable a ‘Boost Mode’ like on the PS4 Pro. According to this report, games that use dynamic resolutions will hit their target resolution more frequently on Scorpio, while frame rates will more consistently hit their target, resulting in fewer frame drops and stutters.
Windows Central also mentions that at Scorpio’s launch, both the Xbox One and Project Scorpio will support Shader Model 6, a new API for shading that should improve efficiency on both consoles.
Project Scorpio will be released during the 2017 holiday period. The Microsoft Store already has a product page for Scorpio, although you can’t pre-order or buy the console just yet.
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Honestly, I kind of think Scorpio is DOA, really. They've sold half as many units as the PS4 and have been on the market for over 3 years. Their 2017 lineup of exclusives is pretty weak and they're getting more attention for their cancelled games than their announced ones. I don't see the release of a premium console that requires a premium entertainment setup (4K and HDR haven't gotten mainstream adoption yet) while in the midst of a losing generation to be a good idea.
MS will stick with it for this generation but they're already turning the Xbox brand into a platform across multiple devices (like the PC crossbuy stuff and their $10/month subscription for games that also works on PC) rather than focusing on just console hardware. The Scorpio was announced way too early with way too few details and is coming out way too late. In another 2 years, Sony will probably announce or release their new hardware and MS will have gone from a half step ahead to a half step (or more) behind, except without the momentum of any great hardware sales behind them.
Currently I do not game on my home theater set up and have not owned a game council since Sega Genisis. For me part of it is financial right now and it is taking everything to upgrade my home theater and try to also purchase movies and trying to also purchase vinyl records. Also the other part is I would rather game on my pc than game on a council. Gaming councils have come a long way and the graphics keep improving but so do pc's. And since I do not care for the loading mechanism on the gaming councils and do not stream movies very often I prefer to use standard components and not game councils. But this is my preference and I am sure there are those who love gaming on the councils and use them for streaming movies and are very happy with them. Oh last thing is I refuse to pay to play multi player games online so there goes gaming councils. Not saying I will never get a gaming council again because there are some great games that are not available for pc and the only way to play them is on a council. So if my finances take a huge turn for the better then I honestly could end up with a X Box or Playstation you never know but it would basically be for games only.
Since they stop reporting how many consoles they sell in 2014 your just using the industry guessing. However they have always been outsold by Sony. I don't think that means they are DOA. Plus there Windows 10 / Xbox cross platform gaming is a big part of there sales these days.
I'm pretty excited with what Scorpio could be we will have to wait and see. I have the Xbox One S and really enjoy upscaled 1080/HDR gaming now. Looks fantastic on my 85" 4K TV. I game quite a bit and have been a XBOX gamer since day one. Dabbled in the PS3 but in the end never used it for anything other then a blu-ray player, never could get used to the controller. I sold it when I got an Oppo blu-ray player. So I'll admit that I'm a XBOX fan but I'm impressed with the games Sony comes out with just can't use the controller so it will never be in my house.
I don't get the thing about not being able to use a PS controller as opposed to the XBOX controller. They all work, fundamentally, the same way. The PS3 controller did feel a bit small and lightweight, but that was easy to get used to. The redesigned PS4 controller actually feels ergonomically more comfortable than the XBOX1 controller, but neither controller is hard to get used to.
Besides the controller, what is the real difference between an Xbox One and a PS4, or even Xbox 360 and PS3? The OS' are a bit different and the online stuff is what it is, but the only real difference is the games. If you're playing multiplatform games then there's barely a difference. Look at the exclusives, the real reasons why you get specifically an MS or Sony product.
The Xbox 360 outsold the PS3 for years. Sony eventually caught up once both had hit like 80 million units. But right now, Sony is kind of sweeping the floor with MS, even compared to history. MS also doesn't report Xbox console sales anymore because they want to focus on areas with constant revenue (which is why report game unit sales and Xbox Live subscriptions).
The crossbuy stuff between Xbox One and PC is great for consumers, but actually kind of incentivizes people to just play on their PCs. Especially if you already have a decently powerful computer, there's no reason to get an Xbox One.
The industry "guesses" on hardware sales put Xbox One at 26 million units. Sony is over 53 million units. I don't believe that the Xbox One number is very far off from the reality.
But why does that make the Xbox DOA? 26M units is a fair number given the gaming industry in general is starting to slide. However, the gaming business is ~3% of Microsoft's business so the fact they haven't left the console world yet proves they feel it is a good play for them.
As far as the controller goes it is smaller then the xbox controller which aggravates my carpel tunnel. Much like lots of things they would have all there buttons mapped differently then the xbox which would mess me up. That aside I probably just never played it enough to get used to it. So there is my reason like it or not.
In the end it will be interesting to see how Scorpio does. I think sales will do well but I'm not expecting it to out sell the PSx because they have quite the fanboy base. Plus, I think really screwed up the Xbox One release and that killed their chances to be the leader. Way too may defections but I think they are doing well in the home device market and the Scorpio could be a fantastic device in the 4K world. This could be the last console MS makes. I do think the console market in general is starting to fade because the console generation is getting old. Kids like mine are moving back to the PC again.
Morgan hates everything.
I never said MS was doing poorly as a company because of the Xbox, but the fact that the Xbox One isn't doing so hot and it only makes up ~3% of the company is good reason why they may be considering to kill it off, or at least kill off dedicated hardware. The XBO and PS4 are basically mid-range PCs at this point, so MS turning Xbox into a brand and a service makes sense.
I don't think 26M units is a relative success, even though there's more time to go in this generation and MS is clearly turning some sort of profit from the brand. Honestly, were it not for the absolute commercial failure of the Wii U (13M units in 4.5 years) then the Xbox One would be a huge failure. The PS3 did better against the 360 than the One is doing against the PS4 and was considered the loser for most of the last generation.
I don't hate everything. I've actually been loving Zelda quite a lot lately. 🙂
The single biggest difference between the PS3 and the 360 was the lack of Blu-Ray playback in the latter, in my opinion.
It wasn't felt so much early on when it looked like HD-DVD stood a chance again Blu-Ray, but when that quickly failed, the 360 didn't have a counterpoint to that feature and HD streaming hadn't yet become all that viable to fill the gap in any meaningful way. Otherwise, as both a PS3/360 fan from early in their lifespan, they were pretty much even in almost every conceivable way, right on down to the final sales figures for each platform (~90 million units sold, each).
Where is this 3% jazz coming from? In their 2016 annual report for example, they reported $85.3 billion in revenue, with over 11% of that attributed to the Xbox. That's far more substantial than 3%, and one of the most glowing bits in the entire report if you scan it was the sizable increase in active Xbox Live subscriptions, with a 33% increase from 12 months before.
Morgan has been underselling Microsoft's performance since I first visited this corner of the Home Theater Forum. For a long time, he was quite insistent that they hadn't even made any money off it until very recently, when in reality they've had a profitable console business for a decade now, after quickly turning the corner with the 360 very early in its lifespan.
I imagine the Xbox One is basically a success. After a rough start of their own making that dug a pretty deep hole, they've done a nice job recovering.
The 360 and PS3 were comparable in every way? Really? Did the 360 support 3D Blu because I cannot recall it doing so? How about lossless tracks?
The PS3 far outstripped the 360 as a multi media machine.
I don't see why I had to even spell that out about 3D Blu-Ray when I started out by saying that the single biggest difference between the PS3 and the 360 that I'd otherwise agree with Morgan about being pretty much comparable, "was the lack of Blu-Ray playback in the latter".
That rather encompasses 3D Blu-Ray support, wouldn't you say? Either way, even if one doesn't agree that they were very comparable systems with minor strengths and weaknesses over the other, it's rather unimportant to the conversation.
Morgan is right, it's the different exclusives that really differentiates the Xbox One and Playstation 4 experience today, since so much of it otherwise is a close match between the two.
When you claim that the two machines were virtually interchangeable by stating that the differences were "minor" then I'm going to challenge that. There was nothing minor about the 360s lack of Blu ray and lossless audio support.
The machines were not comparable as convergence devices. The PS3 far outstripped the 360 as a multi media device in a home theater environment.
Almost the exact opposite occurred with the XBOX1 and PS4 roll out.
90 million people bought the Xbox 360 and another 90 million bought PS3 (overlap for re-buys after hardware broke, not counted). I doubt whether or not one or the other played MP3s or 3D BluRays or HD-DVDs made a big difference. The PS2 sold incredibly well because it played DVDs but I don't think multimedia function was as big of a feature in the PS3/360 generation.
I didn't say MS didn't turn a profit until recently. But I did say that the entire Xbox (original first console) was a loss (and planned that way) and they started to turn a profit on the Xbox division a couple years into the 360's life. That ended up turning into a net loss again when the RRoD issue popped up and they offered to fix all Xbox 360s with the issue for free. Since then, they have become profitable again.
I even said that I'd be willing to guess they're profitable on the Xbox One. But they've only sold 26M units in 3.5 years while their primary competition has more than doubled that. Remember that the Xbox One launched at $100 more than PS4 and with Kinect 2 packed in. Remember that the Xbox One was dogged by the reality that it was ever-so-slightly less powerful than the PS4 at launch (but sitll close enough that the experience is basically the same on both).
With Scorpio, MS is trying to adopt the next step of the cell phone upgrade strategy that Sony started with PS4 Pro. Incremental updates that are fully backward compatible and games being made to run efficiently on more than one device. It's a half step to the next generation whereas the PS4 Pro was a quarter step. The problem is that the Xbox One isn't doing well enough to revitalize the brand but its also way too early to release a full-fledged successor.
According to VGChartz, the Xbox One is less than 400k units ahead of the 360 in life-to-date-equivalent sales: http://www.vgchartz.com/article/267662/xbox-one-vs-xbox-360vgchartz-gap-chartsjanuary-2017-update/
Extracting some numbers out, it looks like the PS4 is outselling the PS3 at this point in it's life by something like 20 million units: http://www.vgchartz.com/article/267…aligned-sales-comparison-january-2017-update/
The lead Sony has right now is staggering. (And actually, if you remove the 1 year head-start, month-by-month sales of PS3 vs. 360 over their lifetime have Sony ahead. Releasing Xbox One and PS4 at the same time hurt MS a lot.)
I'm a console gamer and I use my PS3/PS4 in my home theater. Games look fantastic projected 1080p on my 106" screen, and I couldn't imagine having to go back to a TV to play them.
That said, I'm not too interested in 4k gaming, simply because I don't have the means to play games in 4k. A 4k projector won't be in my budget any time soon, and like I said, I wouldn't want to downsize to a TV just for 4k gaming.
However, I'm very surprised by comments in here about the console gaming market slipping. I don't have any industry information to go off of, but personally for me it feels like one of the strongest console gaming time ever. So many amazing games coming out and now that tons of indies are publishing to consoles, my gaming backlog is getting so huge I couldn't keep up unless I quit my job and got divorced.
This is a pretty good time to be a console gamer, but competition from outside forces (PCs, tablets/phones) is sort of hurting the traditional console market. The PS4 and Xbox One are selling better than their predecessors but the market of "gamers" is also greatly expanded and now includes people who used to or might have bought consoles but now just play on mobile devices. More money is being made in games but it's just coming from many more sources.
You kind of hit on a huge point regarding 4K gaming: the public isn't ready for it yet. It's cool that it exists but not enough people have 4K TVs that are just calling for a native-4K console. That's partially why I found it bizarre that people were so upset with Sony for not putting a 4K BluRay player in the PS4 Pro. There were literally a handful of movies in the format and not enough people owned the TVs.
I'm puzzled by that statement too. The Switch had the best console launch ever for Nintendo, and the PS4 is a dream come true for Sony. I think if anything gaming has become more of an accepted pastime/way of life than ever before.
I don't think it is bizarre at all that people were upset at the lack of a 4K player in the Pro. It just shows that Sony has gone back to doing stupid shit.
I would considered upgrading to a Pro if Sony had had the brains to create an all round system like they did with the PS3. As it stands, the Pro is such an incremental upgrade that it isn't worth spending money on.
I would look at an upgrade to Scorpio if I knew that it would support more than just 4K gaming.
The present and near-term future of 4K content resides heavily in gaming or streaming video, not physical disc media. Why would Sony increase the cost to make the PS4 Pro by adding in a 4K drive for content that doesn't exist? Especially considering they're doing exceptionally well without it?
I mean, besides the fact that you personally want it, what business sense is there in doing it?
Your assertion that no 4K physical media is available is wrong. Blu ray media was pretty skimpy when the PS3 came out. That didn't stop them from putting a Blu-ray player into the machine.
Not putting a 4K player into the Pro made the machine not worth buying for an incremental increase in power. Might as well wait for the next gen which will probably copy Nintendo's Switch strategy, but with a lot more juice.
Anyway, we got off track here since this is supposed to be about Scorpio which is more than a tiny incremental upgrade than either the 1S or Pro.
There are more UHD discs in the market then Blu-ray launch day and date. Blu-ray did have HD-DVD eating into the market some but not really since many titles where launched on both formats. Sony lead the way in the Blu-ray world but decided that streaming was going to be the model for the PS4. The drive can't be that much since the Xbox One S could do it for the same price as the Xbox One. Sony could have done it but chose not to because they wanted you to buy their UHD player. 🙂
4K TV sales are booming because that is almost all you can get now, so 4K gaming makes since, even more so if you are talking at the end of this year beginning of next year. However, much like most things 4K, will people even notice since they gave us HDR now? The Scorpio is targeted to go after the PS4 Pro it is not replacing the Xbox One S. So I'm guessing we will see a pretty high price tag.
My comment around the console gaming market is because of mobile. There have been a ton of articles about the effect. My ~3% number was the last qtr because most of MS money is now coming from cloud (Azure/Office365/etc). I know lots of gamers my age are starting to scale their gaming back or not gaming at all. Out of the 100 or some gamers I had on my list 75 no longer play or have greatly scaled their gaming back. One of the reasons my gaming forum closed its doors a couple years ago. We are too slow to play against these kids. 🙂 I still play a bunch but I would say I have cut my play by 25% or more. If I look at my sons gaming it is mobile or PC even though he has his own console. Most of his friends are the same (high school).
Edwin, you're a bit confused on what my opinion is…
Morgan said they were very comparable machines and I agreed, except for stating my opinion that there was one significant difference between the two machines, which was the lack of Blu-Ray support on one of them.
Why are you then trying to tell me how wrong that opinion was, because you also consider it a significant difference that only the PS3 had Blu-Ray capabilities? Can't you see that my initial opinion was in complete agreement with what you're now arguing with me over?
Xbox One S and PS4 Pro owner here, and I think we're in a golden age of gaming. Yes, PS4 has been more successful, I think for good reason, but Xbox's new status of underdog has forced it to make some bold choices. I'm rooting for both.
The state of game hardware? A mess. 4K display tech is still ahead of the ability of these "inexpensive" game consoles to render acceptably on it, so we're stuck with game presentations that are more ambitious than the hardware can handle. All because they need to be able to slap "4K" on the box.
The latest console iterations are an attempt to solve this problem, and so far the experiment has not been completely successful. Whether we see new consoles in a few years or continued iterations on the same platform, we still have a ways to travel before 4K becomes as affordable, ubiquitous, and reliable as 1080p.
The only thing I'm disagreeing with is the claim that the two machines were comparable. From a completely technical standpoint the two machines were never comparable and it was the Blu-ray drive that tipped the balance.
The drive was was what increased the extendability and versatility of the PS3. We agree that the drive was the difference, so I don't quite get why you would agree with him that the two machines were comparable. They weren't, regardless of the final sales numbers for both systems.
Outside of the Blu-Ray playback on one of them (Which was rather inconsequential for the console's primary function of playing games), what were the great differences that made each such a different experience from the other?
As an owner of both from early on (2006 on the 360 and 2008 on the PS3), I see two very comparable machines that were designed for similar goals and evolved in similar ways to meet the needs of their customers at comparable points in their lifespan, like the explosion of streaming apps.
90% of the software was the same, and after the first few years as developers mastered the PS3, pretty much ran identically. And the features that one were pretty much covered on the competing system, such as both embracing motion at approximately the same time with their own unique takes on it.
The single biggest thing that one could do that the other couldn't, was to play the winning format of HD optical video discs. The other differences yield no clear winner, like exclusives. They were just differences, with each having their advantages and disadvantages like faster download speeds on the 360 or the PS3's frequent mandatory installations.
Minor deals outside of Blu-Ray video playback.
the PS3 was slightly better than the 360 in terms of graphical capabilities;)
That was countered by the 360 being an easier to program for platform and the clear sales leader for years by virtue of its early launch, that saw many multiplatform titles be developed with the 360 as lead platform. So the PS3 often wasn't able to show its strengths outside of 1st party development.
The quantity of multiplatform titles that looked and performed better on the PS3 seemed to be much smaller than the other way around, especially earlier on. And even when developers learned the art of PS3 development and the system established itself as a force to be reckoned with as the sales leader outside of North America, the best we usually saw was equivalency.
The differences when we saw them even in the latter days just before the XB1 and PS4 hit, usually still favored the 360 version such as GTAV.
That was countered by the 360 being an easier to program for platform and the clear sales leader for years by virtue of its early launch, that saw many multiplatform titles be developed with the 360 as lead platform. So the PS3 often wasn't able to show its strengths outside of 1st party development.
The quantity of multiplatform titles that looked and performed better on the PS3 seemed to be much smaller than the other way around, especially earlier on. And even when developers learned the art of PS3 development and the system established itself as a force to be reckoned with as the sales leader outside of North America, the best we usually saw was equivalency.
The differences when we saw them even in the latter days just before the XB1 and PS4 hit, usually still favored the 360 version such as GTAV.
I forgot who even made the snarky comments for Microsoft regarding the restrictive "always online", and "sharing" capacity before the XBO launched. I hope he got fired. I think he alone cost Microsoft millons of units in sales.
a slew of arrogant comments directed at the hardcore gamers who simply wanted to play offline.
Even after the policies were reversed(again before the system even launched), I think the damage was already done. Especially with the infamous "We have a system for that, its called the Xbox 360" in regards to playing offline. What a nightmare.
Yeah that "online only" pre-release comment likely cost a lot of goodwill for MS. And it didn't need to. So many of the games I (and I'm guessing a large percentage of gamers) play requires online connectivity anyway. So many FPS and MMO require it. So they didn't need to issue a statement to anger the masses. For us, it's about having the illusion of choice, even if really there isn't one (i.e. I can't play Destiny offline on either PS4 or XB1).
I'm console agnostic. I've owned Atari, Sega, Nintendo, MS, Sony, NEC, Colecovision, Amiga, etc. I find it totally interesting that from PS3/360 to PS4/XB1 their positions re: home media center and home theater playback essentially reversed. I owned both PS3 and 360, and while I did most of my gaming (NCAA FB, Halo) on 360, I had a huge Rock Band catalog on PS3, plus it doubled as my primary BD player until I got my Oppo.
I bought XB1 first, primarily due to Halo and Destiny, with designs to eventually buy a PS4. When the Pro and S came out, I was excited for both. I was on the fence about the S, as I already owned an XB1, but I was sure I was going to buy a Pro.
And then I learned that the S played UHD discs and the Pro did not. I ended up buying the S.
I know the common refrain is "The Pro is for gaming" and I get that. It's just curious that Sony, a mega player in the home theater market and which had been cutting edge in putting BD in the PS3, decided to reverse course in the Pro. I'm sure many people are happy with that decision, but I can't be the only one who didn't pull the trigger on a Pro due to lack of UHD BD playback.
The PS3 went with bluray (and PS2 with DVD) as the format because of the space requirements for games, not the media playback options. Most movies now are watched through streaming services, which Sony knows, so adding the cost of a 4K bluray drive to the PS4 Pro and then having an extremely small number of people utilize that function is kind of pointless.
And yes, there are 4K movies, but how many are there? And how well are they selling? And what do 4K players typically cost?
Yes, the Scorpio is a big leap over the previous Xbox consoles. However, the fact that MS is requiring devs to make all of their Scorpio games also work on the One and S means it's going to functionally be not far off from the PS4/Pro dynamic. It's not the "next Xbox console" but rather a more powerful version of the current Xbox console. I don't think this will result in much that consumers will care about, really, especially if they have absolutely nothing special coming out for it this year.
~180+ (211ish announced)
They are outselling blu-ray at launch last I read
$300-$600 both game console and dedicated available
Is that enough? I don't know but Sony just released a dedicated player for $300 so I'm sure it wouldn't have cost them that much to add it. Just weird to me.
The processing power needed to do the decoding is already all there with the Pro, so the actual cost of the physical drive would not add all that much more to the manufacturing costs. If the XB1S could have a UHD drive (and keep in mind Sony is actually in the hardware side of UHD so they'd likely "charge" themselves much less for the drives than Microsoft, who has to purchase their drive from another manufacturer) at still be priced at $100 less than the Pro, then I'd hazard a guess that cost was not the leading factor behind its omission.
I'd buy that cost savings was a factor if they did not have an optical drive at all in the PS4 Pro, but they do. Samsung's player has now dropped to $229 at Best Buy, and that's for the optical drive, all the hardware and software to decode and display it, and for the manufacturer and retailer to still make a profit, and to still charge a price premium on the fact that UHD is still the "newest/latest/greatest". You know if they wanted to, they could manufacture and sell both players and discs at very near standard BD prices.
And although 4K discs are limited, as David points out they're further along than BD was at the same point, and BD was following the most successful home video format of all time, DVD. So all of the "reasons not to put a 4K drive" were present when the PS3 became one of the best, and earliest, BD players in Nov. 2006 (BD debuted early summer 2006). And yet Sony put one in the PS3 anyway.
This article postulates why Sony omitted the drive, and it's a pretty good read. Also further down in the article it says that the cost of the UHD optical drive is around $40 for the XB1S.
Say what you will, but the PS4 has sold 56 million units and the Xbox One, including the S and it's UHD drive, has sold 26 million units. Clearly, the public doesn't care about the UHD drive and Sony has saved a good amount of money by not including it.
And honestly, I'd wager a good guess that most media consumption now is through streaming services. There's much more potential for 4K Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon video than there is for UHD discs. Consumers are more likely to want 4K streaming video over 4K discs. Annual sales of DVDs and Blurays are on the decline (which is especially bad because Bluray, as the newer/better format, has not come anywhere close to the sales numbers of DVDs but is already past its peak).
The PS3 comparison isn't really fair because you're looking at a GAMING console through the lens of a VIDEO format. Yes, having bluray playback in the PS3 (along with its many media features) was pretty awesome, but remember that the thing came out at $500/$600 and the size of games necessitated the larger format. (The Xbox 360 took quite a lot of negative feedback from developers because it stuck with the DVD format.) The PS3 didn't have bluray support because Sony was trying to pull the same thing they did with the PS2 and DVDs, it had bluray support because it needed it.
Also, the Xbox One S costs the same as a PS4 Pro ($400). It's still weaker hardware than the Pro but has the UHD drive.
In the article you posted, the guy says "I know people buying a One S simply for the media capabilities." That may be true, but there's 7 billion people on the planet and 26 million Xbox Ones have been sold. I don't know if his personal inner circle of technophiles and geeks is representative of the larger "gamer" demographics that MS needs to appeal to. It's not very convincing evidence of anything.
Morgan, I have a long buying history with Sony and have nothing against the company. I want to buy the PS4 but due to the lack of UHD I can't justify it. I'm not personally attacking it, and I realize it's sold more units. None of this is up for debate. I don't know why you have such a personal tie to the PS4. You are attaching a level of emotion that I (nor many people in this thread) am not doing, like you're personally invested in it. I'm not. I'm just saying why I didn't buy it.
Also please do some research before stating things like "Also, the Xbox One S costs the same as a PS4 Pro ($400)"
An easy search on Google Shopping, Target and Best Buy.com shows an XBox One S with Minecraft bundle for $249
Target
Best Buy
You're right, the One S is $300 MSRP or less on sale (which is the case with the two links you posted). I was thinking of the premium model, the 2 TB HDD for $400. There are cheaper options (the bundle you point to, an old Xbox One, etc.) but the top-of-the-line option is the same price as a PS4 Pro, $400. You can find a PS4 or One (whether Pro or S) for somewhere between $250 and $400, so they're kind of even in that sense, with the exception of sales.
If you compare the technical capabilities of the PS4 Pro and Xbox One S, the Pro is more powerful but the One S had a UHD drive. They're marketed by both Sony and MS as gaming consoles first and foremost, and in that particular regard the PS4 and Pro are "better" than the One and S.
Your personal interest may lie more in the UHD drive capabilities than the games. That's fine, it's your prerogative and your personal decision. I'm not saying you are wrong. I'm saying I think the degree of love for MS and hate for Sony over a UHD drive is kind of silly because it clearly doesn't matter to most people. I'm not a Sony fanboy or anything (I own an Xbox, Xbox 360, Kinect, and a bunch of games for them, but do not own a One or S) but I think MS has royally screwed over their supporters and fans this generation in comparison to Sony.
The PS4's bluray player app is pretty bad but serviceable. When watching a movie on it, I wouldn't be able to see a real difference from any other player. With the sole exception of 4K UHD support, what difference is there between a PS4 and Xbox One S? The majority of the function of a game console, as I see it, is the games. The difference between the two platforms lies primarily in their exclusives. And MS doesn't seem to have many coming this year, and that's on top of the hit-or-miss ones that have come out previously. Even as a system to play 3rd-party multi-platform games, it's inferior to the PS4. That's ironic considering the weaker-but-simpler Xbox 360 typically had superior versions of multi-platform games over the PS3 versions.
I know that this is the Home Theater Forum and it makes sense that people here would care about things that are bleeding-edge and top-of-the-line like 4K UHD playback, but this is also the Gaming subforum and it would make sense that people here care about things like…games.
Morgan I would say even though MS has less exclusives for their console I think they have been focusing on the independent small market games. I see 10-20 new indy games every couple months and some of them are pretty good. They may not be as good as the major studio games however most are free to play or micro transaction. Obviously I don't have a PSx so I don't know what their story is but it is very important to MS. Honestly 90%+ of games come out for both consoles anyway at some point. The major studios can't afford to just build games for one or the other.
Again. "Hate". I don't have it towards Sony. But you keep throwing that word out there like a paper tiger. I have neither hate nor love for these companies. I love people, not things. And I hate rude drivers.
And your talk about one company "screwing their supporters" over the other. I don't see anything MS has done post-release as screwing their user base. Both Sony and MS have fractured their devices with tiered hardware releases. What they did do, which was serious and egregious, was talk about online-only pre-launch. Had they not done that, I would suggest the race would be closer. They really took a black eye with that comment, I was even tempted to dump them until they 180'd on that decision.
We hear streaming is the future. We hear "viewers can't tell the difference between 2K and 4K". We hear "4K TV penetration is weak". Those exact same arguments were heard in 2006 but replace 4K with BD and 2K with DVD. And just because you and I have robust internet (loving my 300MBps), keep in mind the vast majority of Americans do not have anywhere near this speed.
Here's a 2016 FCC report on broadband access. Keep in mind those numbers are "access to". That doesn't mean everyone who has access to a broadband tier is buying it.
So for the vast majority of Americans, 4K streaming recommended of 25MBps down is not available to 2/3 of them, and I'm going to guess the 1/3 that have access to it aren't all buying it. Meanwhile the price of 4K declines rapidly. Last year I purchased a smart 65" 4K UHD with HDR for half the price of my first HDTV (which was a smaller screen size). Adjusting for inflation, that's more like 33% of the price. UHD will never approach DVD penetration, but neither did BD and it had a great run.
With regards to who is potentially screwing their supporters: can you imagine when UHD takes off, and it will be sooner rather than later, how PS4/Pro owners will feel when the next rev of the PS4 has UHD in it? I'm not talking PS5 in 2025. I'm going to bet it's more like 2020. Some people will have shelled out $800 for both machines, and then rev.3 will have UHD.
Speaking of the One S.
Am I reading correctly that I have to buy some bulky adapter just to connect a Kinect to a One S unit?? My 8 year asked for a Kinect for his bday and it seems I'm stuck having to buy this adapter just to use an XBOX ONE Kinect.
My other issue that pisses me off is finding the adapter in B&M stores seems to be nearly impossible.
PS4 has been VERY pro indie support since launch. There are a TON of indie titles available and lots coming to the console constantly.
Often times I think they are too pro indie, as there are certainly a few really crap titles that make you go 'WTF? How did this make it on to a console?'
Even the Wii U has been exceptionally pro-indie. This is something that is just the new norm with gaming, not any particular platform.
"When UHD takes off?" You really think it's going to take off? Bluray barely even took off. It has already peaked and is on the decline. And with that peak, it is selling less than 1/4 of the number of DVDs being sold in a year (as in, during the same year). Streaming and digital purchasing has increased a lot, however. I think you're more likely to see people buying digital (read: watch on every device you own) versions of movies in 4K rather than getting a physical disc (even if it comes with a digital copy code). And I'm not saying this because it's what I want or do or like, because I actually prefer physical media. I just see this as becoming the trend now and it's where all of the sales are projected to go.
You're right, internet bandwidth is incredibly low in many places. Yet, MS was about to launch an online-required game console a few years ago. To what extent do you think these giant corporations are considering the components that they use and their tech strategy across the entire globe based on what some parts of (relatively) rural America have for internet speeds? MS didn't put a UHD drive in the One S because people in the middle of the USA have slow internet.
The rate of people buying 4K TVs is still very low. Sure, they're getting cheaper all the time, but there are a bunch of problems in the tech world right now. People buy new smartphones every 1-2 years because of the unique situation of what a smartphone is and how quickly the tech evolves. However, we have seen that this 1-2 year cycle absolutely does not carry over into computers, tablets, game consoles, or TVs. So there are going to be people who are perfectly content with their 60" 1080p HDTV that was $1500 brand new just 3 or 4 years ago and don't feel the need to buy a brand new 65" 4K TV at less than $1000 any time soon. 3D came and went, curved is on its way out, and yet people are still not buying TVs like electronics companies are hoping for. Sure, the amount of 4K TVs being sold every year has gone up for the last few years, but the total number of new TVs being sold is down. Yes, eventually 4K will be the new standard format and everything everywhere will be 4K. But not soon enough for 4K UHD disc sales to matter to the Xbox One S.
Regardless of the reasons, bluray didn't do as well as DVD and 4K UHD is probably not going to do as well as bluray. Call it uninformed consumers, call it too much competition from streaming, call it tech moving too quickly. But it's the truth.
In the same way that the PS4 Pro was a premium console aimed at people who want that more-expensive-but-better experience, that's kind of what the Xbox One S was trying to do except with pretty much only the UHD drive (sure, some games can do better graphics and HDR, but it's literally like less than 10 games). The Scorpio is trying to one-up that, which seems like a good idea but won't matter if there aren't any interesting exclusive games.
EDIT: I fully expect the next piece of physical gaming hardware from Sony, if it has a disc drive (versus carts like Nintendo or download-only), that it will have a UHD drive (or whatever is the best/near best at the time). It's a good idea to have one because of the amount of data that can fit on the disc. It has little to do with people wanting to watch UHD video discs and more to do with how it improves the gaming experience.
Alf – Yes, you need a special adapter to use Kinect with the One S. You can get it from MS' online store, I think.
I thought the prevailing consensus on why Sony didn't put a UHD drive in the pro was because they didn't want to cannibalize their own stand alone players? I have no evidence to back that up, just what I've heard discussed.
Morgan is set in his ways and has a world view of consoles that most of us arent going to fully embrace. Judging a system by numbers sold is a valid metric but it's not one I personally give a damn about. If, like me, you reject his worldview it's best to just move on rather than arguing about it on the internet.
BTW, you can buy a well equipped X1S TODAY for $240.
https://slickdeals.net/f/9857792-ne…-bundle-240-fs-newegg-via-ebay?src=SiteSearch
Yes, I can't figure why he is so adamant on defending SONY's lame decision or inability to include a 4K drive in the Pro. The price for a Pro in Canada is 500 dollars and for what…..an incremental increase in power that might only be noticeable with their VR head set? I might have seen it as more of a value to charge that price if a 4K drive had been added, but it definitely is not worth that cost for the upgrade as it stands now.
I actually think that is the most likely reason. The PS3 was such a capable and upgradeable machine that their CE division lost two generations of sales of standalone players among a lot of home video enthusiasts; first with Blu-ray and then with 3D Blu. Their home video division was not about to repeat that experience, so they lobbied hard to keep a 4K drive out of the Pro. Of course, that is all just speculation on my part.
Either way, all SONY's decision has *managed* to do is drive anyone who wants a single box solution, vis a vis games and home video, over to a 1S or this rumored Scorpio box.
Here is some other speculation on my part. The Vive and Oculus headsets are PC based and most likely use Microsoft's DirectX protocols and aspects of the MS operating system. I wonder if this Scorpio box, assuming it actually shows, will be able to support the Oculus and/or Vive VR headsets?
They have stated that it will support VR but I don't think they have said which versions.
I just googled Sony UHD player and things have changed since that Forbes article I linked to. Sony does indeed have plans to release a mass market UHD player, although release date is not clear: it's not in stock on Sony's site (the buy now button is gone) and it's not widely available. It's MSRP is $299. So I'm not sure how many sales SCE would have lost to the Pro, given that those who would have only wanted a UHD player would have saved $100 (more, likely with sales) and likely just bought their player. And those that wanted an all-in-one could have still stayed in the Sony ecosystem and bought a Pro. Sure SCE would have "lost money" to Sony Games, but it's better than losing it to Microsoft (from Sony's POV).
My opinion of the XBox One, PS4, Sony, or Microsoft has nothing to do with sales numbers. I think MS has royally messed up a lot of their moves this generation after doing a pretty great job with the Xbox 360. And I don't think adding a UHD drive to an upgrade version of the Xbox One was anywhere near enough to fix it.
That said, my view on why Sony decided to not really bother with UHD in the PS4 is absolutely based on sales numbers. I think everyone here seems to be under the impression that Bluray was a massive success that blew up demand from consumers for even more high-end tech. That simply just didn't happen and Sony knows. Physical media for movies and music is dying. It won't completely die, but it has been dying enough that the investment into the technology won't pay off enough in regards to the PS4 Pro incorporating a UHD drive. The PS4 has sold extremely well on the basis of being a gaming-first machine. They're leading this generation by a very health margin and are continuing to have bigger-than-ever sales (holiday 2016 was the most PlayStation consoles sold EVER). Exclusive games and the slightly-better-than-Xbox-One experience are driving this success more than media capabilities.
The fact that the One S has been out for 6 months and hasn't led to any dramatic boost in Xbox console sales or UHD disc sales shows how kind of pointless that feature was. The way everyone is talking about UHD being a boon for MS is like saying Kinect, since it added cost but also capability, was a huge positive for MS…which they eventually dropped entirely from the platform.
Is it cool, for us, for HT enthusiasts, that the Xbox One S has UHD support? Yes. Does it really matter to the rest of the world? The 80 million people who bought a console this generation? No. Sony knew this. People griped about the Pro not having a UHD drive and still bought one anyway because it offered a slightly better experience over the regular PS4 and the Xbox One.
Again, the main value between the two platforms is exclusive games. Microsoft is losing out right now because of the bungling of the reveal/launch/messaging early on and their surprisingly-weak exclusive slate. Sony is dominating because of the gaming qualities of their platform and because, frankly, most of the 56M people who own a PS4 don't care about watching blurays or UHDs in their console as much as they would rather stream stuff online.
While I certainly won't argue that the demographic that is interested in UHD is very small, I would say that those interested in the PS4 Pro would most likely be the ones to also be part of that demographic.
There could certainly be overlap, especially considering the highest priced version of the One S is the same price as a PS4 Pro, but I don't really think Sony is all that interested in selling the PS4 as a media device. They market it heavily as a gaming machine and sort of even ignore things like Netflix and HBO Go. At most, they push PlayStation Vue and Spotify as media apps but don't focus so much on physical media. I mean, it can't even play CDs.
Again, they've sold more consoles than they have before at this time in a generation, and done so with a really crappy bluray player and nearly zero other media support at launch.