When things like 4K and GPU power come up I'll often see people mention that it's not readily available, that not enough people have 4K TVs, that GPUs aren't powerful enough to push them...
I've seen them mentioning this when talking about how the PS4 Pro is unnecessary.
This makes me wonder, do these people not understand how technology works? Do they not realize that for GPUs to become powerful enough to run games in 4K that there needs to be a desire for it? That for 4K displays to proliferate we need GPUs that are powerful enough to push them? Content to display on them?
What Sony is doing by releasing the PS4 Pro is saying "here is a reason for you to get a 4K HDR display and be a part of this new ecosystem of content." This is just one way to get the displays to consumers, which in turn gives companies a reason to release content in 4K, and it increases demand for the computing power to run it.
If everyone said bullshit like "there aren't enough people with 4K displays" and "GPUs aren't powerful enough to push 4K displays" and "there isn't any content to view on 4K displays" then none of the technology would be pushed to accommodate it.
How is anything supposed to progress if everyone is just waiting for someone else to make the initial investment?
If everyone bought a PS4 Pro and a 4K HDR (hopefully OLED) display, there would be all the reasons in the world for chip manufacturers to push their engineers to develop capable hardware. If everyone is consuming 4K content, there's a demand for ISPs to improve their service/infrastructure so people have faster internet, which has more benefits than we could imagine.
It just boggles my mind how many people can be so short-sighted with technology. To say something so ridiculous as "PS4 Pro is unnecessary" as if it won't provide a massive incentive for people to upgrade their displays.
When someone says "well I don't have a 4K TV so this is useless" as if they never before upgraded to a newer TV because they were looking for a better experience...
I don't want to live in a world where technology progresses at a slow crawl because everyone is content with what they currently have, never mind if it's completely stagnant.
Stop complaining when companies try to push new technology. Start questioning why it's not happening more rapidly.
The more advanced and powerful the related hardware is, the more developers are free to craft the experiences they want to give players. When machines are powerful enough to push displays that run an imperceptibly high resolution at an indistinguishable refresh rate, the focus can shift to less obvious but arguably more important things like the underlying systems for physics and AI, and everything that goes into crafting more believable experiences. Things that we probably don't even consider being important now because we're still too constrained.
So the next time you hear about some new technology or product, whether you like it or not, take a few moments to consider how it might improve things down the road... let yourself wonder.
