No 1440p support is frustrating.
Going into the launch of the PlayStation 5, one of the most asked questions, well outside of “will it include an HDMI 2.1 cable”, will support 1440p. This is a great question, as many gamers still aren’t convinced that 4K is the future, while many agree that 1080p needs to disappear. Leaving 1440p as a great compromise. The Xbox Series X and S support it, so surely the PlayStation 5 would as well, right? Well, it turns out that it won’t, and that’s not very reassuring. Sony officially confirmed this to IGN Italy.
Going into the next generation of console gaming, it is maddening to leave out a resolution that isn’t as taxing as 4K yet does present a visual leap compared to 1080p. You could have your cake with tons of details and 120 frames per second while not stressing out the PlayStation 5. We’ve already seen that the Xbox Series X can run 4K@120 frames per second, and well, it’s underwhelming. Sure, it’s nice to see something higher than 60 frames per second, but at 4K, it is really pushing the console. Now, imagine if it was 1440p@120 frames per second? Something readily available in the PC space for quite some time. Skipping out of this means we’ll never see this.
Yet, on the other hand, this does make sense. From a technical standpoint, while there aren’t many TVs on the market that support 1440p, they exist, including several of them from Samsung, LG, TCL, Vizio, and Sony. Chances many of you have one of those TVs that do support the resolution, but I’m willing to bet that you either recently purchased it or it was patched in not too long again. The sad truth is most existing TVs on the market don’t support 1440p, as this is a resolution never really made the jump to the living rooms or family rooms.
Instead, 1440p was mainly for monitors and computers, where PC gamers have fallen in love with the resolution. That said, it’s not far-fetched that anyone would connect a monitor to their PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S. I actually recently started recommending that to some of my friends since it’s a simple upgrade and much cheaper than a new 4K TV.
Since 1440p out is out, the next question is, “can this be patched in” which is an interesting question. I don’t work for Sony, nor am I an insider. I’m just a techie/geek who loves technology, and I’ll leave with this; being able to take a 4K signal to a TV that supports 1440p will downscale the output. Who knows how it will look, though. But a 1440p signal sent straight will not have any downscale and will look amazing. I really hope Sony revisits this if it is possible.
