When it was first announced in Septemberthe PlayStation 5 Pro (out November 7) left many people scratching their heads. Modern consumers are no strangers to frequent hardware refreshes throughout the life cycle of the technology they purchase. Apple taught people a long time ago that whatever iPhone model you have will be immediately followed by an “S” or “Pro” upgrade.
Gamingit’s no different. Since Gameboyplayers have longed for incremental updates to the same product: a smaller frame, a color screen, backlighting – all to play the exact same games.
But as renewal cycles have become the norm, so has the general acceptance of less for more. When laptops switched from disk drives to internal storage, people found they were paying the same (sometimes more) for the same product with fewer hardware features. Then fewer ports. But the promise came with more streamlined software and modernized features.
The PlayStation 5 Pro is not bothered by that. It’s an exercise in offering less for more, and what it delivers will only appeal to a very select group of people. It also costs $700 – $200 or more than the existing one PS5 models.
What’s new about the PS5 Pro?
On the outside, the PS5 Pro looks very similar to the original chunky PlayStation 5, released in 2020, but with a shark-fin-like stripe down the middle that resembles the modular shell of last year’s PS5 “Slim,” Sony’s console’s first hardware refresh. While the Slim (an unofficial name) is simply a smaller version of the OG PS5 with the same capabilities, the Pro has upgraded hardware that affects performance.
The main change is an upgraded GPU which, teraflops and technical jargon aside, makes the console’s computing speed much faster (45 percent by Sony’s estimates). What exactly does that do? It means games render faster, making them run smoother, with textures popping up less noticeably and moment-to-moment gameplay being less shaky when a lot of things are happening at once.
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‘Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’ makes extensive use of advanced ray tracing for reflections.
Sony interactive entertainment
There’s also ‘advanced’ ray tracing, a common buzzword in the industry in recent years. Ray tracing is essentially a tool that enables natural lighting in the game world, with realistic reflections on surfaces such as glass and water, and heavy refraction. It’s something that many people might not really notice, especially if games don’t run at higher resolutions, but it’s what puts a lot of the wow factor in today’s best-looking releases.
Finally, there’s AI (of course). In this case, it comes in the form of “AI-driven upscaling,” a feature officially called PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR). It’s a mouthful of a name, but it has a big impact on the overall appeal of the PS5 Pro, allowing games to save processing power by rendering them at a lower resolution and then upscaling using AI to look better . In short, it ensures that games that used to look good but perform poorly now perform better and look better.
Combined, these three characteristics form the whole of what PlayStation 5 Pro has to offer: making the games you already own or plan to buy look and feel a little better than on a base PS5.
Does the PS5 Pro deliver on the promise?
That does happen, with caveats. The Pro’s ultimate selling point is that it delivers on the technology promised by the original PS5. That console was expected to make the jump to 4K resolution gaming, with ray tracing and smooth frame rates. And it did, to a certain extent.
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Remasters like ‘Horizon Zero Dawn’ see increased fidelity, but only to a limited extent.
Sony interactive entertainment
As a simple rule of thumb, games need to run at a certain frame rate to look good. 30 frames per second (fps for short) is acceptable and is the basis for modern titles, and 60 fps is the ideal when things are going to look extremely smooth with less jittery action or forced motion blur to fill in the gaps. At the high end there’s 120fps and more, but that’s a level of performance only expected for super-expensive PCs.
With a base PS5, players are usually given the option to open a game’s menu and select how they want the game to work visually, which amounts to some version of a choice between “Quality” or “Performance” mode. For quality, that usually means working at 4K resolution and 30 fps; Performance is 1080p or higher, sometimes 1440p (2K) and a smoother 60 fps. These are of course all objectives that a game cannot meet.
What the PS5 Pro offers is an upgraded version of this choice, in many cases literally called ‘Quality Pro’ or ‘Performance Pro’, options that will only become available after a software update for existing games – which Sony says will be the case more than 50 titles at launch. While some games simply drop the previous options for the Pro versions, others still offer the full spectrum, with 5 to 6 options, from Basic Performance to Quality Pro.
Some games have multiple visual options, although some become redundant.
(Stellar Blade) Sony Interactive Entertainment
So it’s really just a sliding scale. Quality Pro now targets 30 fps at high 4K resolution with the full power of ray tracing; Performance Pro aims for 60fps, but uses that fancy AI-driven PSSR to upscale the resolution from 1440p or lower to an artificial 4K. It’s the same bargain as the PS5: one looks better and works worse, the other works well and looks good. Except now the basic performance mode is what players are likely to be like hoped their original PS5 looked out of the box.
Like the PS5, the Pro also improves the performance of PlayStation 4 games, although the ceiling for how much better those games will perform has already been capped.
Rolling stone tested more than 20 games with the Pro, including Horizon Zero Dawn remastered, Horizon Forbidden West, The Last of Us Part I, The Last of Us Part II remastered, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, God of War: Ragnarok, Ratchet & Clank: Rift apart, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Stellar bladeAnd Dragon dogma 2. The majority of PS5 games tested had already been patched to take advantage of the updates, although those that did not, such as Star Wars OutlawsCertainly felt as if they walked better.
But maybe that’s a placebo.
Who is the PS5 Pro intended for?
The real question isn’t whether the PS5 Pro does what it advertises, because the short answer is that it does. Games look and play better on the upgraded console. The real question is whether you’re the type of player who cares.
The visual changes will seem superficial to many.
(The Last of Us Part II Remastered) Sony Interactive Entertainment
It’s been a topic of conversation for years, but the generational leap in gaming technology has all but come to a halt over the past decade. Think of the eleven year gap between Super Mario Bros. (1985) and Super Mario 64 (1996). It was earth-shattering. From 8-bit pixel art to fully realized 3D worlds. In the same time frame, from 2013 to 2024, we have gone from being a beautiful game-like The last of us to a slightly nicer version of the same game.
As the visual fidelity of games approaches hyper-realism, the differences become less noticeable to the casual eye. And while techies and hardcore gamers be able to If you see or feel the difference (I do), it just doesn’t feel like enough.
Take for example the improved resolution and frame rate options. Anyone who has spent a lot of money on a modern television or monitor with an HDMI 2.1 port has had the opportunity to use a mode called Variable Refresh Rate (VRR). What this does is increase the refresh rate of the image to 120Hz (from around 60Hz standard), making games look smoother in motion. Sometimes it also allows an unlocked frame rate, meaning that even in Quality mode, certain games can approach the higher frame rates promised by Performance. Not everyone has this, but if you do, you’ve already lived with what the PS5 Pro has to offer.
Anyone using VRR over HDMI 2.1 has experienced what the PS5 Pro has to offer.
(Marvel’s Spider-Man 2) Sony Interactive Entertainment
Switching back and forth between different visual modes to spot the differences can be a headache, especially when the changes feel so superficial. But it is not just about the superficiality of what is offered, it is also about what is asked for it. The base price for the PlayStation 5 Pro is $699.99, but that doesn’t even include a disc drive – which is now sold separately for an additional $80. So to upgrade the internal hardware of your existing PS5 and tailor its overall capabilities to Blu-rays, it would cost around $780 (before taxes). That’s $280 more than the base PS5 with disc drive is now.
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For the tech-obsessed, hardcore gamer, the PlayStation 5 Pro may be exactly what they’re hoping for. And if they have the replaceable income, great. For everyone else, the PlayStation 5 Pro doesn’t do anything new other than what’s likely seen as an increasing, potentially unnoticeable difference in image quality and feel, all at a premium.
If Sony had dropped the price of the base PS5 and made the Pro the better offering at its current entry point, it would have been a success. But given the cyclical trends in the industry, we’re probably only a few years away from the PlayStation 6 anyway. Might as well wait.