One of the great mysteries of E3 this year was Sony’s refusal to show off the console everyone knew existed, PS4 Neo, during the biggest games show of the year. Ahead of their press event, Sony downplayed the new system, saying it wouldn’t be shown until later. During the event, Sony put on a great show, but ended on a very clear anti-climax, showing off footage from Days Gone, a new zombie game that had already debuted earlier in the night, as their big finale. It seemed like a clear-cut case of the Neo being ripped out of that final slot, and shelved for another day.
After this week’s PlayStation Meeting, which revealed that the PS4 Neo is actually the PS4 Pro, many wondered why this reveal needed its own event at all, given that not all that much was shown. It seemed like something thatcould have been slotted into E3 easily, so what gives?
Reflecting on this further, it seems pretty obvious to me why Sony made this call.
The first answer, the one people were giving at E3 itself, is probably still true to some degree: Sony didn’t want to be outshone by Microsoft. When Sony learned that Microsoft was planning to show off the Scorpio, they did not want to debut their less powerful system up against the better specs of Scorpio, officially losing the power edge they’d enjoyed over Xbox One for so long, and that’s all anyone would have been talking about after the show. Whether they went first or second, debuting the PS4 Pro and having the Scorpio already one-up it instantly would not have been the narrative they wanted coming out of E3. So in order to avoid losing that game, they just didn’t play.
But the thought there was that Sony was now perhaps going back to the drawing board a bit, and instead of releasing the Neo/Pro this holiday, maybe they’d put it back in the oven, make it more powerful, and put it up against Scorpio directly in holiday 2017.
We now know that wasn’t the case, and the PS4 Pro actually is coming out this year, just two months from now, in some ways making its absence from E3 even weirder.
Though after this week’s show, we know how it would have played out if Sony devoted a large portion of their event to the PS4 Pro, much less as its grand finale.(Not Good).
The same problems present with this week’s presentation, the inability to effectively display 4K/HDR content on large screens and/or through livestreams, would have still been present.
Past that, the problem would have been amplified, because the show would have been a mix of showing “regular” PS4 games and “super” PS4 Pro games. Chances are, over these livestreams, most potential players/buyers would not have been able to tell much of a difference.
I imagine a really weird scenario playing out where half the games of the show would have been shown on normal PS4 (because they don’t have Pro versions yet) and then half were shown with the Pro’s 4K capabilities. While in person, these side-by-side comparisons might be compelling, that almost certainly would have not been the case over a livestream, and it would have made the already awkward debut of the Pro, which we saw this week, even worse. That narrative would have crippled Sony coming out of E3, and though they’re dealing with that awkwardness now, all anyone had to say after Sony’s E3 presser this year were good things, for the most part.
Microsoft was smart because they debuted the Scorpio mostly by talking about it and throwing out specs. They did not show off a ton of footage from games running on Scorpio that could be easily compared with the other Xbox One titles they just showed. Yes, the Scorpio is a larger leap in power, but it may end up running into the same perception problems we’ve seen with the Pro regardless. Microsoft played this smart, and so far, has avoided the situation Sony now finds themselves in.
Sony couldn’t have really have gone down that path either, however, because simply listing specs with no footage would have allowed Microsoft to easily claim the power narrative by simply having better specs. So they didn’t do anything at all.
While I think not showing the PS4 Pro at E3 was the right move, I still am unsure that the very existence of the console is a good idea. I think Sony is going to have an absolute hell of a time convincing players without a 4K TV to buy one, and given that includes roughly 85% of the market, the PS4 Pro seems like a pretty niche luxury purchase. It’s been a few days and I’m still trying to wrap my head around the target audience for the product. Players who have abstained from next-gen until now and don’t care about saving $100 on a Slim? Players who own 4K TVs and have enough money where they don’t mind spending another $400 on a console to replace the perfectly functional one they already have? There don’t seem to be many good options here.
I’m not sure Microsoft will fare much better here, even with more power, but we’ll have to wait and see. And we might be waiting a while, given Scorpio’s year-away release. As for how PS4 Pro will perform this Christmas, that’s anyone’s guess, but Sony wants consumers to commit to their new console before NX and Scorpio arrive next year, and if nothing else, they have a big head start.
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