Sony tout a $700 PS5 upgrade, but for whom?
Yes, the countless rumours and leaks were true — the PlayStation 5 Pro is real, but should it be?
The new hardware will arrive in time for Christmas, with a launch date slated for November 7, carrying with it a hefty starting price tag of around $700. This improved Pro model was revealed by way of a brief 'technical presentation' video, hosted by scrupulous PS5 lead architect, Mark Cerny.
Now, as a quick aside, I still think giving a games console (you know, a toy), a 'Pro' suffix is pretty silly — unless of course you're a very serious professional gamer. But nonetheless, that's the name Sony has gone for here.
So, what earns it this Pro moniker? Well, Cerny outlined three key things: a larger GPU, advanced ray tracing, and of course an AI mention by way of upscaling technology. This machine will give you 45 percent faster rendering over the base hardware, along with faster ray tracing calculations, and thanks to a new 'PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution' library, pixel-by-pixel AI-driven upscaling.
Cerny noted that with all this, the new machine aims to "give players the graphics that the game creators aspire to".
But, for me, the roughly ten-minute presentation didn't do enough to really justify this products existence. We were treated to a handful of demonstrations of how this beefed up hardware will improve games, but the changes seemed largely negligible. I was squinting at footage of The Last of Us Part II trying to make out the key differences that I was supposed to be caring about.
please take a look at this [shows unbelievably beautiful, detailed game footage]. as you can see, it looks like garbage,
— Chris Kohler (@kohler.bsky.social) September 10, 2024 at 4:07 PM
Ever so slightly crisper details on something far off in the background isn't enough to get me excited to drop down so much cash. I may be trivialising the technical details here, but when you have the opportunity to excite your core audience and many come away without any major motivating incentive to buy, I'd argue that the messaging has failed.
This is a niche, premium console, arriving during the midst of a changing era. Perhaps it's this clearly niche nature of the device that's key to understanding it? This isn't going to be the one that the core audience gravitate towards, but instead those who want the very best, no matter the cost. I'm just left questioning if that's the best decision here, when right now (following price rises in certain regions) I'd love to recommend a cheaper PS5 model to folks keen to jump into the likes of Astro Bot.
Unlike the PS4, which reached its limits because of a tremendously long console cycle, it barely feels like we’ve scratched the surface of what the base PS5 can do, so the Pro feels like a device for Whales.
— Aidan Moher (@aidanmoher.com) September 10, 2024 at 4:59 PM
At $700 (that's without a disc drive or vertical stand by the way — those are extra) the PS5 Pro represents a testing, and tall ask from Sony. Come November the company will once again test the limits of what PlayStation fans are prepared to pay — and I'm immediately reminded of Ken Kutaragi's comments during the PS3 era, in which he encouraged folks to get a second job in order to pay for the then new console.
PlayStation are chasing higher fidelity, when the advantages seen minimal. But hey, best start saving, huh?