While speaking to The Guardian after the PlayStation Meeting Event, Andrew House, the Head of Sony Interactive Entertainment, stated that the PC was the main target of the PS4 Pro, and not Project Scorpio.
"I saw some data that really influenced me. It suggested that there’s a dip mid-console lifecycle where the players who want the very best graphical experience will start to migrate to PC, because that’s obviously where it’s to be had. We wanted to keep those people within our eco-system by giving them the very best and very highest [performance quality]. So the net result of those thoughts was PlayStation 4 Pro – and, by and large, a graphical approach to game improvement.” -- Andrew House, Head of Sony Interactive Entertainment
A fact that supports House's claims is that the PS4 Pro will not support 4K UHD discs. This is because House doesn't see 'enough consumer interest' in 4K UHD discs for the PS4 Pro, even though the Xbox One S supports it. He instead pointed to streaming, where he stated that while physical media is a 'big part' of the games industry, Sony sees a 'trend' towards streaming. House reaffirmed this, stating that with their user base they have found that video streaming was the second biggest use of people's time on their systems.
Quick Take:
Andrew House is correct in that gamers have been migrating en-masse to PCs. I think the moment I fully reconverted back to PCs came around the time that Red Dead Redemption was released. The game itself was fantastic of course, but there were a variety of things that bugged me, with the foremost of them being the draw distance, which made my eyes bleed. This was also around the time that PC gaming was finally receiving decent ports, and Steam was picking up momentum, so it was as good a time as any to go back to PC.
Do you think the PS4 Pro will be enough to take on similarly priced PCs? Let us know in the comments!
