Eddie-Griffin
Banned
The Xbox One and Playstation 4 launched with several flaws in their hardware design (internally). When examining the reasons why both Microsoft and Sony decided to release upgraded consoles, for Sony, the PS4 Pro was meant to address the fact that the original hardware was falling too far behind the tech curve offered by PC's, which were becoming more and more affordable, you were able to run games on max settings in games like COD or The Crew with a $500 PC about a year before the PS4 Pro released. With generations becoming longer this was seen as a liability.
For Microsoft, the Xbox One X was meant to fix three problems
1. Deal with the fact their hardware was weaker than the competition (Sony)
2. Offer powerful hardware to support new ventures intoVR (later cancelled), Streaming/Mixer, Gamepass, and 4K gaming.
3. Reset mindshare for the brand and improve sales.
There were problems attached to both of these "plus" versions of the PS4 and Xbox One. The most cited being that the CPU was practically left untouched. Instead, any improvements focused on the GPU. This led to side effects for both;
For PS4 Pro
1. Hardware improvements were expensive, resulting in a $400 price that could not be cut.
2. The untouched CPU would bottleneck potential graphical and FPS gains. Even downscaling to 1080p can cause performance issues, and 4K was often checkerboarded.
3. Hard to notice improvements on a 1080P TV.
For Xbox One X
1. Hardware improvements were expensive, resulting in a $500 price that could not be cut.
2. Weak CPU resulted in FPS being locked compared to the original XBO, instead of seeing FPS increases.
3. Few developers taking full advantage of the improved graphical hardware.
When you look at both of these consoles compared to their original releases (Xbox One and PS4) were these upgrades worth it or were they pointless?
At the end of the day, you were spending $400 or $500 on new consoles that ran the same games as the originals, still held back by the same poor performing CPU, even if overclocked, which limits whatever potential the GPU upgrades had. Other than that, the only other difference is the One X went for 12GB of GDDR5 RAM instead of 8GB.
If you were to buy these consoles at the release of the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S or even last year in 2021, they were still $400 and $500. The PS4 Pro being $100 more than the Xbox Series S and matching the price of the PS5 Digital, and the Xbox One X being the same price as the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, raises many questions about their value. Microsoft was smart enough to quickly discontinue the Xbox One X, but retailers who still have inventory continue to sell the console at $500, and the PS4 Pro faces the same issue but at $400.
Because of the costs never becoming more affordable, the sales of the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X while strong at first, eventually declined, and soon both companies stopped reporting on the sales of these upgraded consoles. Most people were buying the Slim models of the originals instead, which offered minor differences but at a much cheaper price.
Were these two upgraded consoles even worth it? What is the point of spending money on R&D to create them with the goal of offering higher graphical fidelity and 4K gaming if they were still held back by the CPU? What is the point of releasing these new units at the original price points of both consoles? Both never receiving a price cut which would have been needed to keep the momentum going. Both companies also failed to get companies to take full advantage of these new hardware improvements, most games offered little difference from the original hardware other than higher resolution and a locked frame rate.
Do you believe that the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro were good decisions? Do you believe that they were completely pointless? Did they convince you to buy an Xbox One or PS4, otherwise you wouldn't have?
For Microsoft, the Xbox One X was meant to fix three problems
1. Deal with the fact their hardware was weaker than the competition (Sony)
2. Offer powerful hardware to support new ventures into
3. Reset mindshare for the brand and improve sales.
There were problems attached to both of these "plus" versions of the PS4 and Xbox One. The most cited being that the CPU was practically left untouched. Instead, any improvements focused on the GPU. This led to side effects for both;
For PS4 Pro
1. Hardware improvements were expensive, resulting in a $400 price that could not be cut.
2. The untouched CPU would bottleneck potential graphical and FPS gains. Even downscaling to 1080p can cause performance issues, and 4K was often checkerboarded.
3. Hard to notice improvements on a 1080P TV.
For Xbox One X
1. Hardware improvements were expensive, resulting in a $500 price that could not be cut.
2. Weak CPU resulted in FPS being locked compared to the original XBO, instead of seeing FPS increases.
3. Few developers taking full advantage of the improved graphical hardware.
| Xbox One X | Xbox One | PS4 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Eight evolved AMD Jaguar x86 cores at 2.3GHz | Eight AMD Jaguar x86 cores at 1.75GHz | Eight AMD Jaguar x86 cores at 1.6GHz | PS4 PRO Eight AMD Jaguar x86 cores at 2.1GHz |
| GPU | 40 customised compute units at 1172MHz | 12 GCN compute units at 853MHz (Xbox One S: 914MHz) | 18 GCN compute units at 800MHz | 36 'improved' GCB compute units at 911MHz |
| GPU Compute | 6.0TF | 1.31TF (Xbox One S: 1.4TF) | 1.84TF | 4.2TF |
| Memory | 12GB GDDR5 | 8GB DDR3/32MB ESRAM | 8GB GDDR5 | 8GB GDDR5 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 326GB/s | DDR3: 68GB/s, ESRAM at max 204GB/s (Xbox One S: 219GB/s) | 176GB/s | 218GB/s |
When you look at both of these consoles compared to their original releases (Xbox One and PS4) were these upgrades worth it or were they pointless?
At the end of the day, you were spending $400 or $500 on new consoles that ran the same games as the originals, still held back by the same poor performing CPU, even if overclocked, which limits whatever potential the GPU upgrades had. Other than that, the only other difference is the One X went for 12GB of GDDR5 RAM instead of 8GB.
If you were to buy these consoles at the release of the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S or even last year in 2021, they were still $400 and $500. The PS4 Pro being $100 more than the Xbox Series S and matching the price of the PS5 Digital, and the Xbox One X being the same price as the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, raises many questions about their value. Microsoft was smart enough to quickly discontinue the Xbox One X, but retailers who still have inventory continue to sell the console at $500, and the PS4 Pro faces the same issue but at $400.
Because of the costs never becoming more affordable, the sales of the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X while strong at first, eventually declined, and soon both companies stopped reporting on the sales of these upgraded consoles. Most people were buying the Slim models of the originals instead, which offered minor differences but at a much cheaper price.
Were these two upgraded consoles even worth it? What is the point of spending money on R&D to create them with the goal of offering higher graphical fidelity and 4K gaming if they were still held back by the CPU? What is the point of releasing these new units at the original price points of both consoles? Both never receiving a price cut which would have been needed to keep the momentum going. Both companies also failed to get companies to take full advantage of these new hardware improvements, most games offered little difference from the original hardware other than higher resolution and a locked frame rate.
Do you believe that the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro were good decisions? Do you believe that they were completely pointless? Did they convince you to buy an Xbox One or PS4, otherwise you wouldn't have?
and she'd still be here.
). Not even the WiiU's BC gave us a satisfying upgrade to Wii visuals.
