PlayStation 5 Pro could be revealed as soon as next month, possibly for $600

Daniel Sims

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Highly anticipated: There's been a ton of speculation around the release of Sony's upcoming PlayStation 5 Pro, with many believing it will arrive sometime in 2024. Although Sony hasn't officially confirmed any details about the upgraded hardware, leaks have painted a solid picture of the potential performance improvements. The console wasn't openly discussed at the recent Gamescom expo, however attendees have shared details that developers may have inadvertently revealed.

Multiple developers have indicated that an upgraded PlayStation 5 console is on track for release before the end of this year. The new hardware could be one of the products Sony is expected to showcase in the coming weeks. According to sources speaking to Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb, Sony will likely hold a new State of Play stream before the end of September.

While Grubb didn't confirm the presence of the PlayStation 5 Pro at the event, it's a possibility. Grubb also floated a potential $600 price tag – a $100 premium over the PS4 Slim that includes the optical drive. Even $700 isn't out of the question.

Meanwhile, comments from developers suggesting a fast-approaching release emerged during last week's Gamescom 2024 conference in Cologne, Germany. One developer told Multiplayer.it that the PS5 Pro's release is imminent enough to impact launch plans for an upcoming game.

Another, smaller developer mentioned that the new hardware will handle Unreal Engine 5 significantly better than the standard PS5. Although Sony has yet to publicly acknowledge the existence of the PS5 Pro, the latest information suggests that many developers already have access to development kits.

The new model's CPU performance is expected to closely resemble the standard console, but it reportedly features significant GPU and AI enhancements, which developers can leverage to offer a noticeably improved experience. Overall graphics performance could see an uplift of up to 45 percent, while ray tracing performance might double, or even triple.

Additionally, PlayStation "Spectral Super Resolution" – Sony's in-house counterpart to Nvidia's DLSS and AMD's FSR – will use upscaling to enhance image quality from lower rendering resolutions. As a result, some titles may use ray tracing more extensively on the PS5 Pro, while others could achieve higher frame rates or sharper visuals.

If this pans out, Sony would be jumping ahead of console rivals. Information regarding a potential Xbox mid-generation refresh remains scarce, while Nintendo is expected to reveal its next-generation Switch console in the coming months, but with an expected release sometime in 2025.

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But as we've seen with the S/X debacle, developers will always target the device with the lowest common specification. While a very small minority of games might use some of the added power, the majority will not (or will make only superficial use of them).

Put another way: This is nothing more then a mechanism for Sony to prop up its HW sales until we get a PS6.
 
PS4 Pro had a very clear and unambiguous target - 4k TVs, which were arriving to mainstream market smack bang in the middle of that console generation. And it worked pretty well, despite muddying the waters somewhat. Higher def or higher framerate offered something console gamers didn't have access to up to that point.

Its not yet clear what the objective is here. It will be interesting to see how this will be marketed to existing PS5 console gamers as something truely compelling. I don't think console gamers will care that much about ray tracing tbh. Maybe I'm wrong, but PSVR2 tells us that Sony doesn't always have the pulse of the market either.
 
Its quite funny how the ps3 started this "pro" nonsense,

I know, the ps3 didnt get a pro variant, it actually went backwards and had most of its features stripped over its lifetime sadly,

instead it was released at I think 600 smackers, which was apparently just too much, although it gave gamers literally everything they asked for, if it worked out like it shouldve console gamers would probably have some seriously badass consoles right now.

instead it sorta kinda failed, which lead to a very meh ps4, which birthed the ps4 pro to make up for its shortcomings.

and here these dumb gamers are begging for a ps5pro for 600 dollars, if they already had a ps5 which they do I bet, thats 1100 dollars! sony has played these people like fiddles and its truly amazing(and very sad) to witness.

I've come to the conclusion that gamers may be the single most dense fanbase of them all, they're built to be abused by these companies because no one has a modicum of common sense.
 
But as we've seen with the S/X debacle, developers will always target the device with the lowest common specification. While a very small minority of games might use some of the added power, the majority will not (or will make only superficial use of them).
That's not how any of this works. This is not like the Series S sutuation, the only substantial difference between the PS5 and PS5 Pro is the faster GPU. A bigger GPU is trivially easy for games to utilize, any game that has either dynamic resolutions and/or a mode with unlocked framerates will automatically benefit from the faster GPU without any updates, and a large majority of PS5 games do use dynamic resolution. Of course, the game can be updated to receive specific tweaked modes for the Pro, to use better graphics settings rather than just higher resolutions, and to use PSSR; but the claim that PS5 games simply won't benefit from the Pro is just ignorance.
As opposed to the Series S, which is not just a weaker GPU but also much less memory (10 GB, compared to 16 GB for the Series X and PS5), meaning games need significant architectural changes to use less memory and run on the Series S. That's not the case with the PS5, both the base and the pro versions have the exact same amount of memory (16 GB).
 
Its quite funny how the ps3 started this "pro" nonsense,

I know, the ps3 didnt get a pro variant, it actually went backwards and had most of its features stripped over its lifetime sadly,

instead it was released at I think 600 smackers, which was apparently just too much, although it gave gamers literally everything they asked for, if it worked out like it shouldve console gamers would probably have some seriously badass consoles right now.

instead it sorta kinda failed, which lead to a very meh ps4, which birthed the ps4 pro to make up for its shortcomings.

and here these dumb gamers are begging for a ps5pro for 600 dollars, if they already had a ps5 which they do I bet, thats 1100 dollars! sony has played these people like fiddles and its truly amazing(and very sad) to witness.

I've come to the conclusion that gamers may be the single most dense fanbase of them all, they're built to be abused by these companies because no one has a modicum of common sense.
The PS3 was stripped down not because "gamurz", but because Sony was loosing their shirt on every sale. Allegedly, the 60GB PS3 lost $800 per console, at a sale price of $600. Those losses were just not sustainable and early software sales were not holding up to what sony expected after the PS2's success. Sales for the PS3 dipped significantly once the PS2 mode was removed.

Both the PS4 and xbone were made more modestly to prevent the same situation happening again, as we emerged form the great recession.

Context, you see, is important. I've come to the conclusion you may be rather salty. Gamers love to consooom but all we've done is turn console gamers into PC gamers, constantly chasing higher frames and better detail.
 
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The PS3 was stripped down not because "gamurz", but because Sony was loosing their shirt on every sale. Allegedly, the 60GB PS3 lost $800 per console, at a sale price of $600. Those losses were just not sustainable and early software sales were not holding up to what sony expected after the PS2's success. Sales for the PS3 dipped significantly once the PS2 mode was removed.

Both the PS4 and xbone were made more modestly to prevent the same situation happening again, as we emerged form the great recession.

Context, you see, is important. I've come to the conclusion you may be rather salty. Gamers love to consooom but all we've done is turn console gamers into PC gamers, constantly chasing higher frames and better detail.
I may be salty, but only because gamers are dumb as hell, instead of happily burning another 600 on a console that has a hint of games, or on the pc side having to buy a 4090 that still cant hit 60fps without tricks, they should be asking why devs cant program a game half decently anymore.

its annoying that now the answer to these horribly made games is just "toss moar money at it".
 
Based on the leaked specs, the GPU will be around a 7700XT in terms of performance, but the CPU will still be a Zen 2 chip limited to under 3.9Ghz. Also, the RT performance might be a little better than 2X PS5, AMD says 3X to 4X in some RT workloads, but keyword there is some.

The question I have is why? The PS5 has been out for four years. A console life cycle has been about seven years. Pro owners will get three years before PS6 is released. Why do this?

I think smoother transitions would make more sense. For example, just release this as PS6, upgrade the CPU of course, but not a Pro. Require that developers support PS5 and PS6 until PS7 releases. Then require support for PS6 and PS7. This way developers don't have to patch support in. This would be fairer than buying a PS5 Pro for three years to be completely replaced by the PS6.

In my opinion pro consoles are rip offs. At least they have been thus far. You pay more for a shortened life cycle. Additionally, they have been held back by weak CPUs, the 7700XT would be better paired with a 5700X equivalent or perhaps they could even pull off a 5700X3D equivalent (lower frequency and power requirements, but much better CPU for gaming.)

This would also allow for a more consistent console cycle. Just release a new PlayStation every 3 years. It would be a little shorter over all, but a PS owner could count on their console getting new content for up to six years.
 
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I hope Playstation 5 Pro has some kind of a Buyback program for PS5, and includes better audio options. A much bigger concern is the stability of the online PSN network, it has been buggy lots of heartbreaking drops. I am fighting with my ISP right now to resolve drops hopefully issue is something they can fix?
 
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