Exactly, I’ve never understood the obsession with backward compatibility. If you have a lot of PS3 games, then that means you had a PS3. It doesn’t magically stop working when you buy a PS4, just leave it hooked up and switch HDMI ports with your remote when you want to play it.
This might be bleed in form PC gamers, many of which are coming back to consoles from PC gaming after going there towards the end of the last generation. Also why there’s this new obsessions from console gamers with high resolution and high frame rates, which they certainly didn’t care about last gen.
PC gaming features near universal backwards compatibility, AND the coolest feature of all, getting to go back to older titles with new hardware and take advantage of that hardware in a way you might not have before.
That might be running an old game at 4K, or running a once demanding game at ultra settings on your new GPU. Or, most likely, replaying an older titles with user created mods that enhance all sorts of things from graphics to gameplay.
These multi-platform gamers are likely to be more tech savvy, be more involved in gaming communities, and be otherwise louder than the average mainstream gamer. They are left wondering why their consoles can’t do what their PC can or what the other gamer’s platform can. And this stuff is definitely not going unnoticed by the manufacturers either. Sony came out and said the PRo was a stop gap measure ot try and keep those more core players in the Sony ecosystem, over moving to PC.
If you want never ending backwards compatibility then yes you should be a PC gamer, no argument there. But my argument (and the sales figures for the PS4 backs this up) is that the average consumer does not care about backwards compatibility. Most people finish games or get bored of them and want to move on and when they have a new shiny console they only want to game on that one and not the older one.
Sorry but those that want BC are a vocal minority but they are not the majority of console gamers.
Agreed. But the same could be said about your average console gamer and things like 4K, HDR, and 60 FPS, performance and IQ of games.
You probably need to listen to both the mainstream (Although they tend to be more quite) and the core audience, because lots of what the core audience says, is heard by the mainstream.
So basically, the figures bare out what you say, most people don’t seem to care that much, but the reason why it’s an issue that comes up pretty often, is likely because of what I mentioned above.
SirTCups is part of that core audience.
I’m not even all that particularly much in that core audience, because I’m not necessarily looking for “backwards compatibility” moreso than I’m looking for the ability to play old games.
They may sound like the same thing, but I think of backwards compatibility as me throwing in my PS3 edition of The Trilogy into my PS4…I’m not necessarily looking for that. I’m looking to play The Trilogy no matter the means. I’ll pay for it even.
The only real disappointment about it is I can’t turn in my 3 and my games for the extra trade-in cash.
Even PCs don’t have universal backwards compatibility. Let’s not pretend otherwise here. There’s an awkward dead zone of games that came out in roughly the Windows 95 era where we can’t yet emulate them (ala Dosbox, which is a bit of a nuisance in and of itself) but which did things that modern OS’s don’t really allow.
I also think that anyone asking for PC-style backwards compatibility from a console doesn’t really understand some fundamental differences here. The PS3 copy of your game doesn’t have all the assets stored in 4k and then downrez them to whatever res the PS3 was running at. It just has the assets that the console was actually going to use. Expecting this stuff to look better if it were emulated for “backwards compatibility” on a PS4 is a pipe dream. At best, you might experience some performance improvements. At best.
Oh DOSBOX. The last time I booted that up was to try Mantis again. I wasn’t patient enough to get it set up correctly, and so the speed was always off. It took me about 5 minutes to remember than I hated Mantis, and trying to fiddle with DOSBOX just to play it was stupid.
For most people, the performance is a perk. It’s more the desire to play older games, but not keep older consoles and the assorted cables, adapters, and controllers around.
On that note, anyone know how I can play Legend of Dragoon? THAT game I remember loving, oh so very much.
ETA: Apparently it’s updated for PS3 and available from the Playstation Store. Goodbye weekend.
I dunno, this is directly contrary to what Kinthalis was asserting to be driving this so-called “demand” (so-called and “demand” because once again, companies keep deciding that backwards compatibility doesn’t generate the revenue to justify the cost - it doesn’t sell enough consoles.)
For those gamers, they simply by the HD remasters of the original. There IS a market for that, given the numbers that have come out. The jury is out on whether FFX looks any better in 1080p.
I did say near universal. And this is still a weak-sauce argument really. The number of games you can’t run in some fashion on a modern PC is dwarfed by the amount you can.
I need, like, 6 or 7 of you to tell me I’m stupid and to stick with the better deal here so that I can sleep better at night, ok? Ok.
So I was tooling around Amazin looking at PS4 stuff because Mass Effect is coming soon and I want it. Since I don’t have a 4 yet I was just going to get a PS4 Pro. I don’t have a 4k TV, but eventually imma need a TV so why not get the system and the game now and wait for the TV to die and get a new one?
I can get a Pro and ME:A for around 500 bucks.
That being said, I also see that I can get a 500GB PS4 Slim Uncharted Bundle, and extra controller, Horizon Zero Dawn and the Deluxe ME:A for around $350.
I have to take that second deal, right? I mean, it’s getting SO MANY MORE THINGS for over 100 bucks cheaper. I don’t even have a 4k tv and I’m honestly a casual enough gamer that I doubt I’ll even notice much of a difference (you don’t know when you can’t see anyway).
But I really want the PRO because it’s obviously the future of gaming, so there’s a part of me that feels I’ll have to upgrade eventually anyway. I don’t want to regret going for the cheaper option later on.
But that’s stupid right? I need to be smart and get the package deal. Tell me to get the package deal, tell me why I’m wrong about the Pro and let me sleep better at night about this decision.
Lol at the Pro being the “future of gaming” ;p
All the pro does is, in SOME games improve the quality of the image on 4K TV’s, since it will render at some point above 1080p, which will look better than 1080p stretched out.
Frame rate targets are the same, which means most games will still be 30 FPS, though they might be more consistent (but again, not always, there are a few games performing better on the base PS4 than on the Pro!).
When do you expect to be picking up a new TV, that’s really the question here. If it’s not any time soon, don’t bother. Stick to the base PS4, get all the extra games, get a model that is slimmer and quieter than the Pro, and that will work fine, for console hardware, at 1080p.
By the time you are in the market for a new TV you can consider purchasing a Pro, or a PS5 if it takes that long, or a scorpio (or get into the real future of gaming with a gaming PC :p), or what have you. You’ll probably be able to swing some kind of discount or deal on a TV + console bundle at that point too.
IMHO, don’t buy the console based on the “free” games it comes with, most can be bought cheaper down the line. The biggest kvetch I have about my PS4 is the hard drive size. When I bought it, I thought like that Seinfeld episode where Kramer repaints the lines on the highway: “How roomy!”. Now I wish I would have gone for the 1TB as I feel like I have to manage what’s on the hard drive more than I want to and have to make future decisions on what games I think I might want to play soon or if I want to wait later to download or update them again.
I’d probably consider an external drive in that case though, as the PS4 now supports them. With USB3 and a hybrid drive you’re likely to see improvements in load times too, which are horrendous on consoles.
I didn’t know that was an option. Thanks!
That 500GB was the other thing I was concerned about. But I don’t use my console for anything other than disk games (and their subsequent saves) and the apps like Netflix, Hulu, etc.
I’ve never downloaded a game before and, unless The Trilogy magically appears, I can’t imagine I will. Would I still be good do ya’ll think?
When was the last time you were able to put a disc into a PS4 and just play the game?
All games install on hard drives first now a days.
Your info is out of date. As of Firmware 4.5 the Pro will allow users to use “boost” mode to improve frame rates even on games that aren’t patched. And eve on current firmware many users have reported that the Pro can already look substantially better at 1080p on some patched games as well (more consistent frame rates, higher resolution textures). Specifically some patched games that were 1080p30 on the PS4 are 1080p60 on the pro.
Eg shadow of mordor has “prefer quality” vs “prefer resolution” toggle in the latest version, and if “prefer quality” is selected it renders 1080p with smoother frame rate than the standard PS4.
Also if you care about VR at all, the extra power of the Pro makes higher resolution VR possible with more detailed worlds. In a lot of places you can find specials on the pro where it’s only $50 more than a PS4 Slim so why not?
Things have improved thanks to boost mode, but there are still games that perform better on the PS4 than on the Pro. Boost mode also breaks some games, though only a few as far as I can tell.
Almost no (actually I cna’t think of any) Pro patched games utilize higher resolution textures. What they do include is higher levels of AF. Some games do downsample to 1080p form 1440+ so IQ will benefit form that as well.
Some have unlocked frame rates (which is almost always bad as per Digital Foundry’s coverage), but I don’t know of any game that is 30 FPS on the base PS4 and 60 on the Pro. Didn’t Sony mandate for this not to be allowed specifically?
I’ll go look to see if I can find some exmaples.
VR improvements (sans tracking cause that’s garbage on all Sony platforms) are definitely there for sure. I wouldn’t even consider VR without a Pro.
Sigh…yeah, you’re right.
I guess it’s just something I’ll have to deal with. I doubt I’ll have so much on there that it’s a problem. If everything gets bigger proportionately, then I definitely should be ok because I’ve never had a problem with previous systems.