The PS4 Pro supported 4K, but it was an all or nothing approach. The display could either output at 4K resolution or 1080p, with no support for anything in between.

The PS5 was confirmed to be the same, although there were reports to the contrary. Now there is no support for 1440p, but it turns out that it doesn't have to be that way forever.

Japanese site AV Watch learned about this when it spoke with Masayasu Ito and Hideaki Nishino of Sony Interactive Entertainment. Nishino said that while there is no technical problem with implementing 1440p in the future, Sony will not support 1440p right out of the box because Sony wants to focus on supporting TVs first. After all, TVs typically max out at 1080p or 4K, not the middle of 1440p.

That does not mean that 4K screens cannot support 1440p, and there are advantages to running consoles at lower resolutions: for one thing, higher resolutions take more power, so lowering the resolution can free up processing power for other important features, such as higher frame rates and ray tracing. higher frame rates and ray tracing, etc.

And, for the first time, the resolution of the screen can be reduced.

And these advantages mean there is a reasonable demand: according to the October 2020 Steam hardware survey, the most popular display resolution is 1080p (1920 x 1080), used by 65.67% of gamers. It is followed by 1366 x 768 at 9.14% and 1440p at 6.75%. Not big numbers by any means, but still very much in use; considerably more than the 2.3% who game in 4K.

Microsoft also supports native 1440p gaming, and has since the days of the Xbox One X. Unfortunately, it is not as easy to ensure that as many people are using 1440p as Steam does.

But if you get a PS5 and want to play on a 1440p monitor instead of a 4K TV, your voice needs to be heard and others will want to do the same. Just be polite, because you know some people get mad when they don't get their way.