There is a lot of talk this week about a possible upgrade for the PS4 being named PS4K for the time. What is it and why is there so much mixed buzz about it? Let’s get the rundown below.
At first, Kotaku outlined the possibility of a next evolution for the PS4 that would have upgrades allowing an upgraded 4K output, only to be verified by Eurogamer that there are indeed prototypes.
If we can believe all the rumors, they say that Sony intends to release towards the end of 2016 to 2017, but that upgrade isn’t going to mean the great leap everyone is thinking it may be. The discs would still be the same. With technology as it currently is, all this means is that there will be incorporated 4K support. We may see improvements such as better picture quality and and upgraded colors, but games and such will still have 1080p resolution. Speculators also say that a possible reason for this upgrade is to get the upper hand on VR competitors. Running VR in 4K is a deal breaker for many looking to purchase.
Technological advances and limitations have been a hot issue in the videogaming community lately, and Sony isn’t the first to receive buzz in this department. Earlier this month, Phil Spencer said, “I believe we will see more hardware innovation in the console space than we’ve ever seen. You’ll actually see us come out with new hardware capability during a generation allowing the same games to run backward and forward compatible.”
This may just become the norm. With technological advances slowing down, we may be seeing smaller upgrades in consoles in the middle of a generation. Before, when they would re-release a console, we expected the same console with slightly different features, such as is the case with the slimmer versions of the PS3. Now, we may expect to see upgrades released slowly, maybe even over longer periods of time between console overhauls.
Welcome to the future.