KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
A Netflix executive appears to be under the impression that Sony and Microsoft are planning to launch 4K video capable refreshes of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 this year, around November on their two year anniversaries.
Obviously we are talking about 4K video playback, 4K gaming is going to be a long way off for consoles. Netflix executive, John Hunt, claims that Sony “promised” a 4K friendly version of the PlayStation 4, which he expects to “eventually” support HDR.
Since these statements were made, Netflix has had to officially tell Forbes that the company is not in a position to comment on Sony's plans but did clarify that when the new consoles are refreshed, seemingly this year, 4K video support will be added in.
Right now the PS4 does not support 4K, despite Sony announcing a 4K capable streaming service for the console back in 2013. Microsoft isn't in a better position either, the console was marketed as the one stop box for all entertainment and yet, it is limited to HDMI 1.4, which isn't enough for 4K over 30Hz.
We have already seen leaked images of what could be the PS4 slim, although these haven't been confirmed. Additionally, an AMD engineer let it slip last year that smaller, more power efficient versions of the chips found in the Xbox One and PS4 have already been made, hinting towards a refresh fairly soon.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: This console cycle is expected to be pretty short but a refresh this year still seems a bit soon, especially considering that the Xbox 360 and PS3 are still being supported by developers and publishers. However, given the push that 4K is getting, it would be smart for Sony and Microsoft to support the format.
Sources: The Huffington Post, Forbes.
Via: TechRadar
Its all about the marketing. Gaming in 4K on PC requires 2 gpu’s or an expensive GPU probably like a Titan. And then 4K Monitors. Most people dont even have one, and probably wont for a few years, waiting for the new 4K TV prices to drop. New PS4, whats wrong with the current one? Nothing. A slimmed down version just performs as well (with the added extra of 4K probably which most people wont be able to utilize).
4K tv prices have already droped. a bunch of 4K tvs are $400, $500, and $750. Not to mention monitors for as low as $450.
I welcome it, as i don’t have a PS4 yet. i hope the new PS4 comes with HDMI 2.0, and a 4K bluray drive. 4K bluray players/movies come out at the end of the year. would be a huge marketing opportunity to offer a 4K bluray player with the console
Just fyi, a Titan isn’t actually a top end card by today’s standards. A GTX 980 is a lot better than the Titan and a bit better than the Titan Black.
Bare in mind that they are talking about video playback not gaming in the article.
Regardless of whether MS in the beginning said there was no ‘hardware limitation’ to the One playing 4K games and movies, in actuality, 4k games are impossible on the One and ps4 and movies are effectively impossible on both (current gen) because they don’t include either a h.265 hardware decoder or a suitable blu ray drive. To decode h.265 you need either a hardware decoder (that neither have), or you need a formidable set of hardware – the i7-2600 and 8gb of RAM is a *minimum* requirement for this, so the hardware on the One/ps4 is nothing like good enough. There’s no ‘hardware limitation’ because technically, you could download a 4k movie in h.264, but it would be hundreds of GB, perhaps larger than the HDD on the One or ps4. It would take you days or weeks to download a single movie, and that’s assuming they had the servers for that, and then you’d only be able to fit one movie, and probably have to delete all of your games, to play it. When they release 4k it will be upscaled 1080/720p, and you’ll see the same almost-lying advertising.
To offer 4k they would indeed need new consoles, or a hardware add-on, whether a new blu-ray player using a currently unannounced standard or a hardware h.265 decoder for streaming (or both). It’s far more likely they’ll just release a new console version, but I’d expect a considerable price hike for these.
Please don’t make the consoles 4k capable. Not only games can’t run on it, even movies will lag the shit out of it.
Why would it? I don’t know the ins and outs but the APUs in the consoles both have h.264 hardware encoding/decoding so 4K shouldn’t lag.
The main problem is having a download speed/cap that can handle 4K content, using the newer h.265 hardware encoding/decoding would help with that but they don’t have it, unless they decide to release a driver update for the GPU to allow the h.265 encoding to be done with OpenCL (at least I think that’s how it works), so 4K movies is possible with these systems, they use HDMI 1.4 which can do 4K at 30fps which would be fine for films and TV content.
Yes you are right that they have the hardware for encoding and decoding but I am still skeptical about the consoles able to play a 4k blu ray disc.
Most likely not possible, the next film media will most likely be a variant of Bluray but the movies on them will be encoded in h.265 (HEVC) rather than h.264 to save space and allow for 4K, not to mention a new storage solution will require new disc reading tech and a HEVC capable decoding chip, so all current Bluray drives become redundant including the consoles.
Well if they do it, make it the slim versions as well. 🙂