PS4 Pro's 4K HDR patches could cost money
Publishers may decide to charge for upgrades, suggests Sony exec.
Patches that update existing PlayStation 4 games with 4K HDR support may cost money, Sony Interactive Entertainment executive Masayasu Ito has indicated. Speaking to Game Impress Watch, as translated by Kotaku, Ito suggested that publishers may decide to charge for these patches.
"It will be different for each title," Ito said when asked if the 4K HDR patches will cost money. "I believe it will depend on the thinking of each licensee."
In his statements, Ito suggested whether patches are monetised "will vary" for each one of Sony's own titles. The interviewer later addressed third-party publishers, asking, "What you're saying is that there will be titles that have a fee [for the patch] and [patches for the] titles that are free?"
"That is correct," Ito replied.
It must be noted that since the interview was conducted in Japanese and translated into English, some information or context may have been lost in translation. GameSpot has contacted Sony for further clarification.
A Sony representative commented further on the issue in a recent Polygon article that it "will not charge consumers for patches." It did not, however, clarify whether this would also be the case for patches from third-party publishers.
4K and HDR are two of the major advantages players will have if they purchase a PS4 Pro. The console was announced during the PlayStation Meeting on September 7 and will launch on November 10, 2016, and cost $399/£349/AU$560. It features a 1TB hard drive, doubled GPU power, and boosted CPU clock speed.
Further details on the PS4 Pro's hardware specs, release date, price and Sony's decision to introduce a more powerful console can be found here.
The list of games that will support 4K HDR when PS4 Pro launches includes Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Infamous: Last Light, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Horizon: Zero Dawn, FIFA 17, Battlefield 1 and Mass Effect: Andromeda. Here are all the games that will be getting upgrade patches for PS4 Pro.
HDR support will be introduced to all models of PS4 via a system update next week. Developers can implement this feature in games and those on 1080p TVs with the original PS4 will also see benefits. During the PlayStation Meeting, lead architect Mark Cerny specified a boosts to visual density as one of them.