PS4 Xbox Console War News

Playstation 4 Pro (PS4 Neo)

PlayStation head honcho Andrew House did not waste any time announcing the worst kept secret in games at this week's at Sony's presser in New York. We will introduce a PS4 system that is slimmer, lighter and more energy-efficient.

Bizarely reports online of PlayStation 4 Slim is being made available for sale on eBay weeks before the console was even officially announced. Weird distribution issues aside, the Slim is just that, a PS4 that has been on a diet, which shares the same specification as the current machine.

The big news was saved for the announcement of the console previously known as PlayStation Neo but now dubbed PlayStation 4 Pro. More powerful with 1 terabyte hard drive and upgraded hardware which supports improved graphics when used with a 4D TV.

There is HDR, or high-dynamic range visuals. Weirdly, it doesn't have the UHT Blu-ray player. While the improved graphics are a big upgrade in resolution from the high-def images created by the current machine, the HDR will help by introducing extra brightness and improved contrast to the pictures as well.

Games such as Horizon Zero Dawn were demonstrated with the machine's improved graphics. Sony also suggested games could be reworked to improve high-resolution images of which the game is capable. It also has extra processing grunt and pitch which will be used to improve the visuals.

For now, Sony has fired the first shot in the latest round of the console wars.The PS4 Pro launches on the 10th of November.

Nintendo NX

Sony and Microsoft are not alone in the new console stakes. Nintendo has a new machine waiting in the wings dubbed the NX. There is not much being confirmed about it yet though we do know that technically, it is going to be less powerful than its rivals. Microsoft already has its Xbox One S Slim which also supports HDR in games and streaming for video, plus it has an ultra HD Blu-ray player and it has its own hardcore piece of upgraded hardware in the works called Project Scorpio.

Microsoft has something of an advantage, having already brought out the Xbox with the Blu-ray player which makes it an attractive proposition. They now have the chance to see what Sony is going to do to get the PlayStation four Pro to pull it apart, to see what's inside and make sure they can better it with a console that comes out towards the end of next year.

Xbox One (Scorpio)

Forza Horizon Three is new and available now for Xbox one and PC. If this time you are taking the festival to Australia. You're going to go through the outback am at the rainforest and through the beaches and cities of the Gold Coast. So many races, so many new things added, 350 cars available to driving this game.

Plus all of these different challenges that are going to come across that you may have seen in previous name, like recent speedboats or racing a huge airship. All of these classic things are going to return plus many more new things.

Including a chance to play with three other friends, yes, four player on life multiplayer. If they are not online you can actually employed your friends if you want to do, along with you to earn you more fans.

4K TV News

Some TV news!  (well its no good have the coolest console on the street when its connected to an ancient TV)

The new Samsung TVs are capable of achieving over 1,000 nits in brightness. In comparison, a regular LCD TV can achieve about 100. Panasonic is backing Oled technology. These TVs can't yet produce the same levels of brightness as the quantum dots, but they don't have a backlight, so each pixel on the TV can be turned off, leading to darker blacks.

The key with Oled is they can create perfect black. And what Panasonic have worked on a lot is taking that panel, which can create perfect black, and using our advanced processing to be able to show the shades of grey just above black.

So you are not having just blocks of black on the screen, you are seeing detail in that black area. And why is that so important? Well, that is the movie experience. Our whole Panasonic ethos is "as the director intended." So we actually have here in this display, we've got a reference monitor, a reference Oled monitor, the kind that is used on film sets, and what we are trying to do is reproduce that on our screen.

So I would say Oled is better for when you sort of pull the curtains, watching a movie at night, whereas LED is great for bright rooms, perhaps lots of people watching the football in the day. But they have both got their place, I think. There is another thing to think about when choosing a HDR TV. There are two standards for providing HDR content.

One is called HDR-10, it is open-source, used by most TV companies, and the other is Dolby Vision. With more data, it is available in more colours, but it is not available for all TVs. One company has it for both formats.

If you go and see the other companies, they improve the same picture quality with cinema and TV. It is not really fixed at this moment, some people are using HDR Dolby Vision, so no-one really knows what is going to be the standout in the market. So it is good to have both for their TV, for future-proof. And, if all that wasn't enough to think about, the BBC and NHK have approved a new standard called Hybrid Log-Gamma, compatible with both HDR sets.

Updated 06/04/2023