I have sunk a couple thousand dollars into a top-of-the-line gaming PC. After a week with the PS4 Pro, I’m beginning to regret it.
PC gaming has secured a monopoly on high-end visuals by catering to a subset of gamers willing to spend limitless amounts of time and money in pursuit of better frame rates, higher video resolution, and supplemental graphical effects. Meanwhile, console manufacturers have focused on selling reliable hardware at a reasonable cost. At launch, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One were competent gaming machines, albeit graphically inferior to the mid-level gaming PCs of the time.
The PS4 Pro, released this month, marks a turning point. While the console still isn’t as powerful as a current high-end gaming PC, it nonetheless manages to offer many of the same benefits. A bundle of PS4 games now feature HDR, increased frame rates, visual flourishes, and even 4K resolution — a stretch for PCs even a couple years old.
Though the PS4 Pro doesn’t win in raw horsepower, it benefits significantly from three strategic choices: