Roku 4 with faster quad-core processor supports 4K video, lets you “follow” favorite shows, available for pre-order now, will ship in October for $129
Roku 4 supports 4K video and a new way to ‘follow’ favorite shows — Roku, one of the earliest players …
Context & Ripple Effects
Roku spent early 2015 putting 4K into its licensed Roku TV sets from TCL, Insignia, and Haier before bringing it to its own hardware — today's Roku 4 is that missing piece, a $129 quad-core box with 4K playback plus a new 'follow' feature for tracking shows across services.
The pricing is already contested: CNET's October review called the Roku 4 the best route to 4K video but judged it not worth the premium for most buyers, a verdict that foreshadowed how quickly Roku pushed capable 4K hardware downmarket.
First-order effects
- Buyers get 4K on a standalone Roku box for the first time at $129, alongside a 'follow' feature that makes the player a show-discovery layer rather than just an app launcher.
- Roku completes a 2015 lineup spanning licensed TVs and its own top-end box, letting it sell 4K regardless of which screen a household owns.
Second-order effects
- CNET's 'not worth the extra money' verdict pressures Roku's price architecture, and the follow-on releases confirm it: by the 2018 Premiere generation 4K HDR had fallen to $40–$50, and voice-controlled sticks like Roku's $50 Streaming Stick carried the refresh cadence instead of flagship set-tops.
- TV makers shipping Roku OS inside their sets gain an argument against buying a separate box, sharpening competition between Roku's licensing arm and its hardware arm.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — flagship streamers launching high and collapsing to impulse pricing within a few years — standalone boxes become a commodity funnel whose value sits in the software layer above them, consistent with the later revenue mix in which Roku's advertising and subscription businesses outgrow device sales.
- The 'follow' feature points at the durable strategic question for every streamer: whoever owns cross-service show discovery owns the customer relationship, even when the hardware sells near cost.
The trend: Streaming media players are racing down the price curve toward commodity hardware, with each generation pushing 4K and voice features cheaper while Roku builds its business on the platform layer above the box.