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Why the PS4 Loses Badly to PC

Why the PS4 Loses Badly to PC

Once again, Sony’s Andrew House has made it clear that the PS4 Pro is meant to compete with the gaming PC. Xbox wasn’t even considered to be on the playing field (another stab at Microsoft, to be sure). Instead, House claimed that “I saw some data that really influenced me,” to which he is referring to the recent statistics that PC gamers outgun the console industry by nearly 2 billion. House goes on to say that, “it suggested that there’s a dip mid-console lifecycle where the players who want the very best graphical experience will start to migrate to PC, because that’s obviously where it’s to be had. We wanted to keep those people within our eco-system by giving them the very best and very highest [performance quality]. So the net result of those thoughts was PlayStation 4 Pro – and, by and large, a graphical approach to game improvement”.

Especially after the announcement of the new console’s lackluster qualities, I find this very hard to believe. The PS4 Pro is certainly not powerful enough to drag gamers away from their beautiful custom-made systems, and it isn’t practical enough for newcomers to the world of PC gaming. That isn’t to say that the PS4 Pro isn’t decent; it’s quite remarkable for a console. Compared to the PS4, it’s got a 1TB hard drive, doubled GPU power, boosted CPU clock speed, and technology adapted from AMD’s Polaris graphical architecture. But it’s not practical enough to justify the move quite yet. Despite the PS4 Pro’s power and fancy graphical capabilities, I still think the PC wins out. It’s worth the money, in my opinion, to buy something I can customize and gerry-rig into a system that works for my specific method of gaming. This way, if I one day buy a 4K TV, I can tailor the system I already have to it.

This brings up another point: Sony is putting graphics above game content. The PS4 Pro is a blanant message saying that you, the gamer, need 4K and HDR right now. It’s so amazing and wonderful, you’ll never go back! But it isn’t really, is it? Even the developers interviewed at Sony’s meeting were trying way too hard to be excited about something they were clearly hesitant about. I mean, we kind of want to see Lara Croft in 4K, but what we love about Tomb Raider isn’t how many pixels make up Lara’s hair. What we love is the gameplay and story. For that wonderful content, we have the PS4 most of us already have – no point in spending more on the PS4 Pro.

Why the PS4 Loses Badly to PC

For those in the market for a PC gaming system right now and trying to decide if the PS4 Pro is worth it – it’s not. Depending on your desires, of course. As much as I want a 4K and HDR TV, I’m not going to be able to afford one for a few years yet. So though the PS4 Pro is something I can budget for faster than a PC, I don’t feel like it’s a system that can stand the test of time. A PC, however, can adapt. Though a decent PC will cost me around $1000-$2000 to build from scratch, I can update it whenever I please without shelling out enough to buy a full console.

Regardless, the PS4 Pro just doesn’t stack up against a PC for content, a custom-tailored system, and custom updates. With a PC, you can build the system you want – not what Sony thinks you should have. Content doesn’t matter to the PC, it’ll run the quality it’s capable of. And technological updates do not require a brand new system.

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