The PS4 Pro is Sony’s new console, that offers developers more power than a standard PS4. That said, there are a lot of restrictions placed on just how developers can use that extra power, and the long and short of it is that you can basically just get the same game as on a standard PS4, but slightly prettier.
So why would developers actually support the PS4 Pro? Why would they bother putting in effort for a machine that only a fraction of the PS4 userbase will own, and which they can’t leverage meaningfully anyway? According to Mark Cerny, head architect of the PS4 and also the PS4 Pro, it is because Sony made the Pro as easy as possible to work with.
“The target was to make sure that support [for the PS4 Pro] could be done for a fraction of a percent of the overall effort,” Cerny said to Gamasutra. “And I do mean a fraction of a percent. I mean, I’ve run the math, and it’s 0.2 or 0.3 percent for these projects — some of them. So at that point, I think it’s very natural for the development community to support the platform.”
That makes some sense- but it’s still extra effort that developers are putting in, another consideration that is now mandated for them. I definitely think that upgradeable, iterative consoles are the way of the future– but I also think that at first, there will be a painful transition period as developers get used to them, and that the PS4 Pro, being the first of this bunch, will see the worst of that.
