First Console - PS4 Pro vs PS4 Slim

[P Pooni]

Hello,

I have a few questions that I'd like to ask. Please help me since I am a novice in console gaming.

Now that the PS4 pro is out, what do you think will happen to the slim?
How many years will the slim last now?
Will the PS4 slim be able to play FIFA 18 when it comes out?
Since it is my first console, which one should I get - Pro or Slim?

I will be playing on a 42" 1080p tv and the only games I want to play are Uncharted and FIFA.

Looking forward to your answers.

 

[Anubis]

no reason not to get the pro right now

 

[WhiteNoise]

The PS4 and PS4 Slim will last as long as the PS4 Pro as all PS4 games will work with all three versions of the console for the life of the PS4. So if you want to save money then buy whichever one you want. The PS4 Pro is the more powerful version though so no reason not to buy it if you do not already own a PS4.

ALL pro enhanced titles will work with any PS4 version console.

 

[magomago]

P Pooni, Brah, if you are worried about the price difference, then save up an extra 10 bucks a week (eat out 1 less meal...basically find a way to avoid incurring a normal recurring cost) until you can afford it.

 

[Lil Frier]

no reason not to get the pro right now

What about if you want a PS4, but the price difference is almost $200 because there are no PS4P deals for Black Friday, but you can get the PS4 Slim for $250 (rather than $400) with either a GC or free games?

That's my complaining that I really wanted to get a PS4P at Black Friday, but the price gap from the Slim to the Pro gets pretty big during that time.

 

[nitromullet]

I think Sony is dropping the price on the Slim back down to $249 again until Dec. 24th. With the Uncharted 4 bundle and 12 months of PlayStation Plus (at Amazon), this is tempting.

On the other hand, games do look noticeably better on the Pro, and it's still early days in terms of optimization.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I think Sony is dropping the price on the Slim back down to $249 again until Dec. 24th. With the Uncharted 4 bundle and 12 months of PlayStation Plus (at Amazon), this is tempting.

I just picked up a PS4 Slim + Uncharted 4 combo from newegg for $230. I couldn't resist at that price considering Uncharted 4 is one of the main games I'm getting the PS4 for and since a PS4 Pro + Uncharted 4 would have cost me $460.

 

[Feneant2]

I just picked up a PS4 Slim + Uncharted 4 combo from newegg for $230. I couldn't resist at that price considering Uncharted 4 is one of the main games I'm getting the PS4 for and since a PS4 Pro + Uncharted 4 would have cost me $460.

yeah, I went slim with Uncharted 4 + free PSN+ in Canad fo 329$... the Pro is 499$ without the game and voucher to screw that, I don't even have a 4K tv anyways

 

[HOOfan 1]

Unless you plan to buy a 4K TV in the next 2 or 3 years, I would just get the slim. I've watched numerous Digital Foundry videos about PS4 Pro gaming at 1080p and it doesn't seem worth the extra $150 in my opinion. The PS4 slim was selling for as low as $210 on Black Friday.

Uncharted may benefit a tiny bit from super sampling, but I doubt FIFA will benefit much at all on a 1080 TV.

Honestly, in my opinion, the biggest upside to the PS4 Pro if you only have a 1080p TV, is that it is the only version Sony is selling with a 1TB hard drive. I've found it incredulous for quite a while now that the base PS4 is not offered with a larger hard drive.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Unless you plan to buy a 4K TV in the next 2 or 3 years, I would just get the slim. I've watched numerous Digital Foundry videos about PS4 Pro gaming at 1080p and it doesn't seem worth the extra $150 in my opinion. The PS4 slim was selling for as low as $210 on Black Friday.

Uncharted may benefit a tiny bit from super sampling, but I doubt FIFA will benefit much at all on a 1080 TV.

Honestly, in my opinion, the biggest upside to the PS4 Pro if you only have a 1080p TV, is that it is the only version Sony is selling with a 1TB hard drive. I've found it incredulous for quite a while now that the base PS4 is not offered with a larger hard drive.

I can't really notice much difference using supersampling on my pc games, so yeah, the Pro + Uncharted 4 for twice the price of the Slim + Uncharted 4 didn't make much sense for me playing on 1080p. I'm ok with the small hard drive, especially for the price the system is selling at.

 

[WhiteNoise]

It is hard to argue when the price difference is that much. For me it is always a non issue. If I want it then I buy it...within reason of course. I'd love a Dodge Viper but can't buy it. I have a perfectly working release PS4 and I still bought the PS4 pro at release. If you can, why not? If money is tight though then go with whatever you can afford.

 

[nitromullet]

I just picked up a PS4 Slim + Uncharted 4 combo from newegg for $230. I couldn't resist at that price considering Uncharted 4 is one of the main games I'm getting the PS4 for and since a PS4 Pro + Uncharted 4 would have cost me $460.

I just did the same. My PC is my primary gaming machine, so a good cheap PS4 that I can play PS exclusives with is just the ticket!

 

[bguile]

Not that it matters now since you got a slim, but VR is supposed to be better on the pro, assuming that whatever vr game it is gets a ps4 pro patch. For example, eve:valkyrie got a pro patch which is said to increase the graphics. If a game doesn't get a pro patch there I don't think there is much improvement.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I just did the same. My PC is my primary gaming machine, so a good cheap PS4 that I can play PS exclusives with is just the ticket!

That was pretty much my thinking, that every multiplatform game is going to look way better on my Xeon E3-1231v3 + GTX 970 system than it ever could on a PS4 Pro. And since the games I'm going to be buying for PS4 Pro are going to be mostly from studios like Naughty Dog and Santa Monica that only do Playstation games I imagine I won't have to deal too much with games not hitting a steady 30 fps on the base hardware. So for example I'm not worried about playing Bethesda games that kill these consoles weak cpus since they all come out on PC. I probably would have sprung for the Pro if it was going to be my main gaming system though and I couldn't buy an $800 gaming PC (say an i5-6500 + H110 board + RX 480 8GB + 8GB RAM + 2TB HDD + decent PSU + Windows 10). Or like bguile said, the PS4 Pro is the better buy if I wanted PSVR (I imagine I'll hold out for at least the second gen on VR).

 

[nitromullet]

I'm actually not worried about any games running poorly on the slim. I bet that with this $250 bundle Sony is going to be selling the slim in droves this holiday season. I don't think Sony would be that foolish to allow developers to put out games that run poorly on the Slim and original PS4 because they wouldn't want to burn that user base. That would be bad for future business.

 

[HumblePie]

Picked up an Xbox One S during black friday for $160, and would have liked to picked up a PS4 pro on a deal too. Was almost tempted to do the PS4 Slim, but was holding out for a good deal on the pro. No deal materialized though for the Pro.

I do own 4K TV's so that was what influenced me to want to pick up the S and the Pro. Great deals on the S, not so great on the Pro. I just have a hard time buying consoles over $200 personally.

 

[zerocool84]

I can't really notice much difference using supersampling on my pc games, so yeah, the Pro + Uncharted 4 for twice the price of the Slim + Uncharted 4 didn't make much sense for me playing on 1080p. I'm ok with the small hard drive, especially for the price the system is selling at.

There is a BIG difference in the supersampling in PS4 games on 1080p. Battlefield 1 and Watch Dogs 2 are much crisper, keeps jaggies to a minimum. And you actually get a small competitive advantage playing Battlefield 1 on the the Pro compared to regular PS4. Digital Foundry is a great place to see the differences.

 

[RussianSensation]

There is a BIG difference in the supersampling in PS4 games on 1080p. Battlefield 1 and Watch Dogs 2 are much crisper, keeps jaggies to a minimum. And you actually get a small competitive advantage playing Battlefield 1 on the the Pro compared to regular PS4. Digital Foundry is a great place to see the differences.

It doesn't matter since a lot of us buy the multi-platform titles you mentioned for the PC anyway. I also picked up a PS4 Slim Uncharted 4 bundle as the Pro is $499.99 Cdn+tax. That's an absurd amount imo for an RX470 level graphics card. The savings is better used towards a next generation Volta videocard (etc.) upgrade, or just buy $150-200 worth of exclusive PS4 games, or frankly put it aside towards a PS5.

I bet next year when MS releases the Scorpio, Sony will either lower the price on the Pro or bundle it with some big exclusive title, or even both. The Pro makes a lot of sense for someone who doesn't have a PC or has a 4K HDTV and wants the absolute best IQ. When PS4 Slim is going for $210-230 USD, imo it's very hard to justify a $400 Pro. That price difference alone is easily enough to buy almost all the AAA PS4 exclusives that are also having nice sales in December.

500GB HDD on the Slim is very disappointing. I'll probably throw in my 1TB 5400rpm old laptop drive in there.

 

[chimaxi83]

Picked up an Xbox One S during black friday for $160, and would have liked to picked up a PS4 pro on a deal too. Was almost tempted to do the PS4 Slim, but was holding out for a good deal on the pro. No deal materialized though for the Pro.

I do own 4K TV's so that was what influenced me to want to pick up the S and the Pro. Great deals on the S, not so great on the Pro. I just have a hard time buying consoles over $200 personally.

Where did you find that price? Or are you just deducting the price of whatever free games and/or gift card you got?

 

[HumblePie]

Where did you find that price? Or are you just deducting the price of whatever free games and/or gift card you got?

Sold by Rakuten for a bit on Black Friday. Big thread on Slickdeals about it. Was for the Minecraft bundle though. Was $158 shipped basically. If I didn't live in Texas it would have been $18 cheaper because I get charged tax by Dell.

 

[nitromullet]

I got my slim on Friday, and I have played quite a few hours of the Last of Us Remastered this weekend. I have to say that at $250 (or less!) this is an awesome little machine. I have no doubt that Pro is better, but at the $250 price point I think the Xbox One S and PS4 Slim are really great values for someone looking to get into console gaming.

 

[HumblePie]

It took me about 3 months to install my new and better motherboard to my PC. Let's see how long it takes before I have the free time to hook up my new stuff

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I got my slim on Friday, and I have played quite a few hours of the Last of Us Remastered this weekend. I have to say that at $250 (or less!) this is an awesome little machine. I have no doubt that Pro is better, but at the $250 price point I think the Xbox One S and PS4 Slim are really great values for someone looking to get into console gaming.

Yeah I'm playing The Last of Us as my first game on the system also. What an incredible game. What's really sweet about this Christmas deal is all the games I wanted were dirt cheap except for Uncharted 4, which came with the system. All the other games I wanted were $18 or less. I think I paid $18 for Bloodborne, $16 for Uncharted Nathan Drake Collection, $15 for Journey, $14 for God of War III, and $10 for The Last of Us. Of course those are all PS3 remasters other than Bloodborne and Uncharted 4, but I haven't played them yet so they're new to me.

Yeah the XBox One S for $250 with Battlefield 1 looks like a hell of a deal too if you're into MP FPS.

 

[Lil Frier]

It doesn't matter since a lot of us buy the multi-platform titles you mentioned for the PC anyway. I also picked up a PS4 Slim Uncharted 4 bundle as the Pro is $499.99 Cdn+tax. That's an absurd amount imo for an RX470 level graphics card. The savings is better used towards a next generation Volta videocard (etc.) upgrade, or just buy $150-200 worth of exclusive PS4 games, or frankly put it aside towards a PS5.

I bet next year when MS releases the Scorpio, Sony will either lower the price on the Pro or bundle it with some big exclusive title, or even both. The Pro makes a lot of sense for someone who doesn't have a PC or has a 4K HDTV and wants the absolute best IQ. When PS4 Slim is going for $210-230 USD, imo it's very hard to justify a $400 Pro. That price difference alone is easily enough to buy almost all the AAA PS4 exclusives that are also having nice sales in December.

500GB HDD on the Slim is very disappointing. I'll probably throw in my 1TB 5400rpm old laptop drive in there.

$400 for a console with a GPU that sells around $175 isn't bad, IMO (I'm speaking to US prices). Throw in the cost of a CPU (call it $100 for a budget one like that), the $50-ish RAM, a $60 controller, and give it $25 for the case (partially to make the number round with the GPU price). That's $410 there, and doesn't give a price for the PSU, HDD, and motherboard.

 

[RussianSensation]

Yeah I'm playing The Last of Us as my first game on the system also. What an incredible game. What's really sweet about this Christmas deal is all the games I wanted were dirt cheap except for Uncharted 4, which came with the system. All the other games I wanted were $18 or less. I think I paid $18 for Bloodborne, $16 for Uncharted Nathan Drake Collection, $15 for Journey, $14 for God of War III, and $10 for The Last of Us. Of course those are all PS3 remasters other than Bloodborne and Uncharted 4, but I haven't played them yet so they're new to me.

Yeah the XBox One S for $250 with Battlefield 1 looks like a hell of a deal too if you're into MP FPS.

It's a double win for PC users. Pick up a refrewshed Slim that uses less power and costs almost 1/2 of the original launch PS4, while some of the key games we wanted are selling for cheap. Unless they have good trade-in deals on PS5 around launch, I might just buy that also 3 years after launch so I can choose between a refreshed PS5 Slim and PS5 Pro, plus get the same bargains on 1st party exclusives. Whenever i was younger I never tried to time console purchases but instead tried buying them as early as possible in the console life. My approach has changed over the years. The first 1-2 years out the consoles rarely have a large enough library of exclusives. For PC owners they don't seem as attractive during this period imo.

$400 for a console with a GPU that sells around $175 isn't bad, IMO (I'm speaking to US prices). Throw in the cost of a CPU (call it $100 for a budget one like that), the $50-ish RAM, a $60 controller, and give it $25 for the case (partially to make the number round with the GPU price). That's $410 there, and doesn't give a price for the PSU, HDD, and motherboard.

From that point of view I agree. I just don't think the PS4 Pro is worth close to double the price is the Slim for those who don't have 4K HDTVs yet. This holiday season all the best deals were on the Slim and XB1, with no good discounts or game bundles with the Pro. I feel that next holiday season MS's Scorpio will put a lot of pressure on the PS4, forcing Sony to price cut to Pro to $349 and maybe even bundle 1-2 games in December. This of course assumes the Scorpio is $399-449 and not $499-599.