It turns out Sony won’t be charging PS4 Pro players for 4K upgrade patches

By Danny Cowan September 9, 2016

The PlayStation 4. — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Kotaku recently confirmed with a Sony representative that the company has no plans to charge customers for 4K/HDR upgrade patches despite comments made by one of its executives, Masayasu Ito. Previously, Ito indicated to Japanese-based Game Watch that customers may have to pay Sony to upgrade existing first-party PlayStation 4 games to 4K and HDR through patches on the PlayStation 4 Pro. That also included vanilla PlayStation 4 owners who will soon receive new firmware that supports HDR-capable displays.

Ito previously told Game Watch that some of Sony’s own published games will feature a surcharge for upgraded PlayStation 4 Pro content, while other titles will be upgraded for free. He also indicated that third-party publishers may charge for the visual upgrades too, depending on the game and the publisher.

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Noting that fees for PlayStation 4 Pro-specific upgrades “will depend on the thinking of each licensee,” Ito raised new concerns over content that many believed would be free. In addition to paying a suggested retail price of $400 for upgraded hardware, PlayStation 4 Pro owners may be required to pay for graphical upgrades across individual game titles in order to get the most out of their investment.

Revealed earlier this week, the PlayStation 4 Pro is an upgraded version of Sony’s PlayStation 4 gaming console. Compared to previously issued PlayStation 4 hardware, the PS4 Pro features a faster GPU and improved processing power. The console additionally offers support for high-dynamic range color and 4K resolution, though Sony declined to include a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray drive as part of the package.

Sony later announced that some games – including Rise of the Tomb Raider and Call of Duty: Black Ops III – will offer faster framerates when played on PlayStation 4 Pro hardware. Multiple publishers assured that such performance improvements will not give players an advantage in a multiplayer context, however.

During this week’s interview with Game Watch, Ito stated that all Sony-published games going forward will offer improved visuals on PlayStation 4 Pro hardware. Some games will be updated for free, while others will require players to pay a fee for forthcoming software patches. Ito did not reveal which games specifically will carry the additional fee.

The PlayStation 4 Pro console arrives at retail on November 10 while the firmware update adding HDR support to the original PlayStation 4 arrives next week.

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https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/1570797280063627264
Hollow Knight: Silksong is a sequel to Hollow Knight, one of the most critically acclaimed Metroidvania games of the past decade. Hollow Knight: Silksong follows Hornet, a character from the first game, as she explores the unfamiliar world of Pharloom. When Team Cherry announced the indie in February 2019, it only confirmed that the game was in development for PC, Mac, Linux, and Nintendo Switch.
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