PS4 Pro Requires Very Little Investment from Developers

Bloodborne patch for Pro is a must. Seriously, no question about it. Best game i've ever played.

well to be honest what's the difference between putting in a PS4 Pro mode and doing multiple setting's for PC games

in essence all the Pro Mode is like is playing a PC game on a higher setting and they do that with any game coming out on PC anyway so it shouldn't really be much extra work for the developers

I had to do a double take on that pic. I thought Elena Fisher dropped Nate and got her self a bad boy.

CDPR have basically said that they have finished anything to do with Witcher 3, so it doesn't shock me that they don't want to update for 4k

PSP requires quite the investment from the players though.

@XtemmA
A Bloodborne with a solid 60fps on 1080p would justify buying a PS pro in my book. There are few games where frames per second matter so much as in the Souls games, unfortunately their optimization hasn't been too kind on us.

They should also remake the original Dark Souls and Demon Souls by the way, I'm willing to bet that would even sell more than the original games did with Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 being the commercial successes they were. Although there's no PS event planned for December yet, I'm holding thumbs that those'll be announced there.

As a resource manager in IT, I have to say I understand CDPR and any studio that doesn't look at an old SKU and want to upgrade it. They're done with that title and are probably short on resources for their next project. Taking someone off the new thing to put some lipstick on the old thing is rather questionable, especially if it might cause a delay to the new thing.

Moreso if they doubt doing so would lead to any new sales. If someone hasn't bought the Witcher by now, PS Pro support is unlikely to sway them.... Probably not enough to make up one or two employees salary.

the division. even just to stablise the framerate at a smooth 30fps.

destiny would probably really shine with HDR support, though i'm not convinced its lighting model is dynamic.

driveclub could really shine, if sony have any support staff left working on it.

I want ps4 pro patch for bloodborne, the witcher 3, and grand theft auto 5 to smooth out the framerate.

I think devs are waiting to see how many people are buying into the PS4 Pro experience.

@FullbringIchigo
I agree, and it's even better than developing for two different PC settings. PC has far more software/hardware variability to deal with, yet these two products (PS4 & Pro) are still two constants, which is far easier to make adjustments for.

People keep saying developers are going to have skyrocketing costs by developing both a PS4 & Pro version. They've already faced this situation before when they release the same game at the same time on multiple hardware generations (ie. Watch_Dogs, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Far Cry 4, etc - all running on both PS3 and PS4). Sure, indie devs will probably be feeling the pinch more chasing Pro, yet they also probably shouldn't be focusing on HDR/4K to begin with. They can just focus their development on a regular PS4 game which Pro players will still be able to play.

I think what people are forgetting is that updating a game to look good at higher resolutions requires the textures to all be upgraded so they don't look fuzzy (think of how noticeable the textures are in older games upscaled to work on new hardware). While the textures have already been made on PC, we don't know how much of an effort it would take CDPR to get them into a version which was never developed with scalability in mind. Also given the Pro likely would struggle to output the game at 4K anyway, there seems little point in them updating it.

It is worth noting that their original statement rules out a 4K upgrade, but mentions nothing about them not allowing a better framerate, indeed it is likely that they need do nothing for this to occur anyway as I'm sure Sony indicated that all games would see a base performance increase with or without a patch - if the engine is aiming for a locked 30fps for instance I would expect that the Pro will hit this target without need of a patch.

Ah well for CDPR, didn't like the game anyway.

We'll see, this is all a bunch of hot air right now. It could take two people...but twice the work hours.

For a normal, non 100 hour+ game with a huge amount of content that doesn't include two lengthy expansions made by a large AAA company, they absolutely can spare the manpower. Everyone seems to forget CDPR made a high quality game, but they are not a large company like, say ND or EA. And to be honest, I find digital foundry to simplify things to an obsurd degree at times, so I'll take their statement with a bucket of salt, especially considering they create zero games themselves.

Killzone Shadow Fall please. It remains one of the best looking PS4 shooters I think and I would gladly revisit it.

At this point, future Pro owners can hope for an FPS boost in any game with an unlocked frame rate (ala Xbox S). But I don't see how platform holders can lean on 3rd Party Devs here. Both MS and Sony have done major layoffs among thier 1st Party studios and it would be more than a little hypocritical for Sony & MS to start making manpower demands on Devs now. This PS4 Pro situation isn't like MS BC program where gamers could request their favorite games be included...

I understand why Witcher 3 wouldn't, since they'd have to change it retroactively. But for say GTA online people are continuously playing it, it gets updated with new content, which people buy. It isn't a stretch to imaging games like those would be.

If Sony provides a financial incentive then these companies should consider doing it otherwise they should be working on current games.

@adf86 They don't need an "excuse." It's their game. They can update it or not as they see fit.

Surely with all the billions of bucks PS4 PRO is gonna make within 6 months, Sony could send 2 or 3 newly created employees who's job focus is to enhance PS4 games to PS4 pro, to CD projekt for a measly £100K for all three salaries over one year? In the end won't more blockbusters which perform better on PS4 pro over PS4 will increase the likelihood of new sales and vanilla players wanting to upgrade.

Visiting Rockstar... Get a shift on lads... How long for heists? Haha

I can understand players wanting The Witcher 3 to look and run better on the PS4 Pro but as has been mentioned, it's an older game, and CDPR is done with it and moving on. I'm fine with the sole focus being Cyberpunk 2077.

Am I wrong in thinking that even if they don't patch the game could still perform better, like sticking a new GPU into a pc games become smoother. So an example would be the game just cause 3 has some terrible framerate issues, but the game is locked to 30, so its possible the ps4 pro will run that game at a constant 30fps without patch.

Witcher will not get any better in terms of graphic power? Cool, I can finish it in two months with peace of mind, knowing it is at it's best right now! Other games in my backlog postponed until PS4Pro

Why would CDPR bother to do this unless Sony provided monetary reward?

The GOTY edition is out, they have done a bang up job of supporting the game which is now over a year old. How many more people will buy it? Where is the incentive?

Regarding The Witcher 3, I played it numerous times and loved it but there's no way i'd spend over £300 just to play it again at 60fps.

@ApostateMage Yeah. PS4 Pro owners will be a miniscule portion of the whole PS4 userbase.

Maybe this will help Colin Moriarty to stop complaining about how tough the Pro is going to be on developers.

I think it also talks volumes for how well received The Witcher 3 has been that everyone seems to be focused on that game with this news rather than the multitude of other games that also will not get an upgrade patch. If more developers had agreed to update their games then the list at the reveal would have been a lot longer - Sony would have wanted to big that up as much as possible. As it is I would only expect maybe a few more games to be added to that list, so it really isn't a great idea to single out one (smaller) developer.

It also made me chuckle that the Bioshock remasters sit at the top of the sales chart, £30 for a texture update and no one bats an eyelid

It's kind of ironic, at first the news was there might be a charge for Pro patches. People panicked. Then the story changes to no charge...but also no patches (basically). People panicked. If Sony setup a patch program with a set fee per game, fans could vote for their favorites and Devs might be inticed by the extra income. But that's a slippery slope, so it's all probably for the best..