Sony's new PlayStation is made for 4K TV

New video game consoles are normally introduced every six or seven years, a far cry from the smartphone business, where more capable models debut every year or so.

Taking inspiration from the pace of innovation in the mobile industry, Sony recently announced a more powerful version of its PlayStation 4 that would display games at higher resolutions, among other big improvements to image quality.

The new PlayStation 4 Pro is aimed at the growing segment of the television market buying so-called 4K high-definition television sets, which jam millions more pixels into their displays for much sharper images. The new console will also present games using another technology called high dynamic range, or HDR, which offers big improvements in colour and other image enhancements.

The PlayStation 4 Pro will cost $400 (Rs 26,700) and goes on sale November 10. Sony also announced a new, slimmer version of its base model of PlayStation 4 that will sell for $300 (Rs 20,025) starting September 15.

Andrew House, chief executive of Sony’s video game division, said that Sony’s decision to release the PlayStation 4 Pro was influenced by the speed of change in the mobile industry, which has come to rival consoles for the attention of gamers. The first PlayStation 4 came out in 2013.

“Wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t wait seven years before we started to innovate and tried something new?” House asked, referring to the time between the introductions of the PlayStation 4 and its predecessor, the PlayStation 3.

Sales of 4K television sets have surged as prices have come down and models have proliferated. In the second quarter, the average price of 4K televisions was down 29 percent from a year earlier, to $877 (Rs 58,539), the research firm IHS Markit Technology estimates. 

The availability of video that exploits 4K sets has been improving, but it is still limited. Streaming video services from Amazon and Netflix are among the early adopters of the technology for their original programming.

Microsoft, Sony’s primary rival in the console market, announced its own 4K-capable Xbox One console this year, with the code name Project Scorpio. But that system will not be available until next year’s holiday season.

Sony already has a comfortable lead in the console market, having sold more than 40 million of the PlayStation 4. Microsoft no longer reveals sales figures for the Xbox One.

Game developers will need to adapt their existing PlayStation 4 games to take advantage of the better image quality of the new Sony console, and update them over the internet. New installments of best-selling games like “Call of Duty” by Activision and “Battlefield” by Electronic Arts will support the PlayStation 4 Pro’s better image quality when they go on sale, the publishers said.

Joost van Dreunen, chief executive of SuperData Research, a game research firm, says he thinks Sony could persuade 10-20 percent of existing PlayStation 4 owners to buy the new model, along with people who mainly play games on PCs.“This sets them up for another three to five years,” he said.