Technology News - PS4 Pro Offers Worse Performance Than PS4 in Some Games

Highlights

• Most games offer better performance on PS4 Pro, as they should
• Some - such as Watch Dogs 2 and The Last of Us - run better on PS4
• Sony is "aware of" and "investigating" these issues

The PlayStation 4 Pro, launched late last week, is designed to offer better performance with games compared to its more prominent cousin, the PS4. But according to a new report, some “PS4 Pro Enhanced” games are doing the exact opposite – they are performing worse. While most games are delivering as they should – 4K and HDR if you’ve got the right TV, or offering advanced anti-aliasing if you’re running a 1080p screen – some are falling short of the frame rate provided by the regular PS4. Eurogamer has seen this happen with The Last of Us, Skyrim, and Watch Dogs 2 – with all three titles performing worse on the PS4 Pro than they do on the PS4. The issue is “fairly frequent” with The Last of Us, with the game regularly failing to deliver 60fps. Meanwhile, the game runs on the PS4 at a locked 60fps without any worries. Similarly, Skyrim on PS4 Pro drops its frame-rate when the game is “heavy on alpha transparency effects”, while the good ol’ PS4 runs it smoothly on 30fps.  

Watch Dogs 2, locked to 30fps, provides great visuals on the PS4 Pro but has frame tearing and frame-rate issues that are not to be seen with the PS4. Eurogamer had mixed results with Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, with the PS4 Pro performing better in some aspects and then dropping multiple frames in other scenes.

A stable, and playable, frame-rate is much more important than visual improvements – be it fidelity or resolution. This is, of course, not the experience gamers should be getting with an upgraded version of a console that carries the “Pro” moniker. After all, Sony’s technical requirements for “PS4 Pro Enhanced” games were that they must “meet or exceed” frame-rates offered on the PS4. For what it’s worth, Sony has responded to Eurogamer’s findings, saying: “We are aware of the issue and currently investigating.” Hopefully the problems will be fixed soon, so current and future PS4 buyers can get their money’s worth.  

Technology News - This is why Snapchat didn’t give Spectacles to techies

If you want to make something cool, don’t give it to geeks first. Google Glass learned that the hard way.

Despite Snapchat’s best efforts, Robert Scoble still got a hold of a pair of the Spectacles camera glasses. He’s the enthusiastic tech blogger above who shot a nude selfie wearing Google Glass in the shower that came to embody the gadget’s cursed brand. He even admits to me that it was smart that Snap Inc didn’t send him a pair.

A SpectaScobles selfie was the exact opposite of Snapchat’s plan. That’s why it didn’t deliver any review units of Spectacles to bloggers, or send them to tech celebrities who usually get early beta access to new products.

If it did, that would have forged a perception of Spectacles as a serious device meant to be painstakingly reviewed instead of casually played with as they should be. And it would have positioned them for serious adults and early adopters, instead of the typical teens that make up Snapchat’s core user base.

So instead, it suddenly dropped a goofy vending machine full of Spectacles on a beach boardwalk in LA, near a national park in Big Sur, California, and a roadside tourist trap off Route 61 near Tulsa, Oklahoma. Snapchat lovers scrambled to get there quick and stand in long lines in hopes of scoring a pair.

There are several reasons this was brilliant:

Artificial Scarcity – People love exclusivity, but with an air of egalitarianism. By not openly selling them online or in a permanent brick-and-mortar store, and instead making their availability extremely limited, somewhat random, and only for those willing to stand in line, their perceived value skyrocketed. Sure, people are selling them on eBay for huge markups at $800 to $2000 dollars. But the point was anyone with $130 and some luck could don the glasses.

Geographic Clustering – Snapchat itself blew up in LA high schools, becoming a hit with a densely interconnected group of teens long before the press picked up on the phenomenon. Facebook actually started quite similarly, only being available at a few elite colleges like Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford. Spectacles were also launched like this. Beyond making everyone else a bit jealous, it limited the chance of someone being the only person in their area using the product. For Snapchat and Facebook, that meant people actually had friends to use the app with. And for Spectacles, it means there will still be hype left to exploit when they hit the east coast and abroad.

Buying As An Experience – When was the last time the acquisition of a product felt as momentous as owning the product itself, and that moment wasn’t annoying? Sure lots of people stayed up late to order their Apple Watch and tweet what configuration they got, though I wouldn’t call that fun. People got excited about their place in the waitlist to use the Mailbox email app, yet the eventual rollout was anti-climactic. But the googly-eyed Snapbot vending machine, dropped in scenic locations, with an augmented reality try-on screen, got almost as much coverage as the videos you make with Spectacles.

Snapchat isn’t the only one realizing big, flashy press conferences and early access for journalists aren’t the only way to release a product.

Facebook cut back on glitzy launch events following one it threw for Facebook Home, which immediately flopped. And after Sean Parker’s video app Airtime bumbled its 2012 launch extravaganza with broken demos featuring celebrities like Jim Carrey, its 2016 relaunch had no event attached.

Snap Inc CEO wearing Spectacles, shot by famous photographer Karl Lagerfeld for the WSJ Magazine

And poor Google Glass. It tried to normalize wearing a computer on your face by handing it to the least fashionable people around, bloggers and app makers. It needed people to look cool wearing it, or at least not super weird, before anyone cared what the reviews said and the apps did. That’s why the first memorable photos of Spectacles weren’t shot by Scoble, but by famous fashion photographer Karl Lagerfeld.

Scoble concludes that the Spectacles Snapbots “make a lot more sense than the way Google rolled out Google Glass to developers and nerds.”