Why I chose [blank] as my next gaming console

I've been holding off on buying a 2nd PS4 for sometime now. My oldest kid is starting to have friends that play online, so he and I have had small discussions on who gets to game. 1 So when word was starting to leak out that Sony was releasing a mid-cycle update to the PS4, I hesitated on buying anything... until yesterday.

I saw the highlights of Sony's product announcement yesterday and knew exactly what I was going to do...

Buy another original PS4.

Yep. After all the hype from Sony's stream yesterday, I got another original PS4. Why? Because after all the excitement passed, I took a look at the 3 versions and saw the middle of the road PS4 was still the best value in my mind.

Here's a comparison of the specs of each of the PS4 systems now available:

PLAYSTATION 4 PRO PLAYSTATION 4 SLIM PLAYSTATION 4 (2013)
Price $399 $299 $349
Resolution 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, 4K (select titles), HDR 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, 4K (video only), HDR 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, 4K (video only), HDR
CPU AMD Jaguar x86-64, 8-core AMD Jaguar x86-64, 8-core AMD Jaguar x86-64, 8-core
GPU AMD Radeon, 4.20 TFLOP AMD Radeon, 1.84 TFLOP AMD Radeon, 1.84 TFLOP
RAM 8GB 8GB 8GB
Storage 1TB 500GB / 1TB 500GB / 1TB
Media BR/DVD BR/DVD BR/DVD
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 802.11 b/g/n
Ethernet 10/100/1000 10/100/1000 10/100/1000
Bluetooth v4.0 v4.0 v2.1
Ports USB 3.0 (x3), HDMI 2.0a, S/PDIF USB 3.0 (x2), HDMI 2.0a USB 3.0 (x2), HDMI 1.4, S/PDIF

On paper, the PS4 Pro looks promising - more storage, better GPU, and can output 4k video for some game titles. But when it was all said and done, the original PS4 still looks the best in my mind. Here's my reasoning:

  1. The PS4 Pro doesn't play 4k Blu-Ray. If the PS4 Pro won't play the media format Sony's movie division has been touting, then I'll wait for the next gen console that does.
  2. The output resolution between the PS4 Slim and the Original PS4 are identical.
  3. The WiFi upgrade is irrelevant because I always have a hard wire connection to my console.
  4. The PS4 Slim is lost its optical out port (S/PDIF), this means my headphone setup won't work with the PS4 slim. 2

If the PS4 Pro had any either a bump in RAM or played 4k Blu-Ray, then the choice would have been a no brainer.


  1. I do, I bought it. ;-) 

  2. This was the deal breaker. 

PS4 Destiny

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