PS4 Pro 10th Anniversary: Price, Specs, and the 4K Promise

The PS4 Pro turns 10 on November 10. Sony said in 2016 that the console would reach Japan, North America, and Europe on that day. It was a rare move: a stronger console sold beside the original, not in place of it. Here is what Sony promised, what the box held, and how the idea worked.

A faster PS4 for 4K TVs

Sony built the PS4 Pro for people with 4K TVs. The company said owners would see higher quality and faster or more stable frame rates. Sony also said it boosted the CPU and GPU to get there.

Sony was careful about what “4K” meant. Its own footnote says the picture was made by graphic rendering or up-scaling. Up-scaling means the console stretches a smaller image to fill a bigger screen, so not every game ran at a true 4K.

Price by region

Sony’s press release listed four launch prices. Prices in North America and Japan left out tax, and prices in Europe and the UK included it.

One small note: the PlayStation Blog listed the U.S. price as $399.99, while the press release said $399. The same blog post put the slimmer standard PS4 at $299.99, so the Pro cost about $100 more.

What was inside the box

Sony’s spec sheet gave the PS4 Pro an eight-core AMD “Jaguar” CPU and a GPU rated at 4.20 TFLOPS. A teraflop is a way to measure how many math steps a graphics chip can do each second. More teraflops usually means more room for sharper pictures.

• Memory: 8 GB of GDDR5.
• Storage: a 1 TB hard drive. Sony notes that some space is reserved for the system.
• Ports: three USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, one AUX port, Ethernet, and an HDMI port that supports 4K and HDR.
• Power: up to 310 W.

Sony also added a third USB port on the back, beside the two on the front. The company pointed to PlayStation VR as one device that could use them.

HDR for every PS4

HDR, short for high dynamic range, lets a TV show brighter highlights and deeper darks. Sony said all PS4 systems would support HDR through a software update. The PS4 Pro was not the only way into HDR, so owners of the original model could join in too.

How games got the upgrade

Games did not get faster by themselves. Developers had to add support. The PlayStation Blog said players could download patches at launch for games such as Uncharted 4. It also named future releases with built-in PS4 Pro enhancements: Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Horizon Zero Dawn, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and Days Gone.

Sony also promised that no gameplay features would be exclusive to the PS4 Pro or the standard PS4. Every PS4 game still had to run on every PS4. Sony also said the Pro would deliver 1080p for all PS4 games, with higher or more stable frame rates in some supported titles.

Why the PS4 Pro still matters

The PS4 Pro showed a new way to sell a console: keep one game library and offer a stronger box for people who want a sharper picture. Players who skipped it lost nothing in what they could play. Players who bought it got smoother or crisper results in games that supported it.

Did you own a PS4 Pro, or stay with the original PS4? Tell us which game looked best on your TV.

Image Credit: PlayStation Blog