PS4 Prowas a necessary refresh forSony’s console when it first launched in 2016. Games were consistently struggling with lower resolutions and notable performance issues, while studios from around the world had toldPlayStationthey wanted more power to realise their visions.
The same happened with theXbox One X, asMicrosoftresponded to requests from players and developers alike who wanted a more powerful option. As the medium was edging towards a new era of 4K gaming, it was only a matter of time until the base consoles felt obsolete. It was the first comprehensive refresh of its kind in terms of technical specifications, but we’ve now come to view it as normal. So when thePS5 Prowas first rumoured, it was business as usual. That is,until we saw the eye-watering $700 price tag.
I was one of the enthusiastic gamers who was willing to embrace the PS5 Pro. Yes, I would be playing many of the same games merely with higher performance and resolution, but given I cover the medium for work and like everything I play to look and feel the best it possibly can, splurging on a more powerful console isn’t that much of a stretch. But $700 is a lot, and money that can be better spent on paying bills, buying food, and not replayingThe Last of Us Part 2for the seventh time. Mark Cerny’s 10-minute presentation was defined by a hubris I haven’t felt from PlayStation since the infamous PS3 reveal, and it hurt them.
One of the coolest features of the PS5 Pro, which wasn’t mentioned in the stream at all, is PS5 Pro Game Boost. This will apparently bring enhancements to thousands of PS4 titles. If this boosts resolutionandframerate, it could be a massive deal. But it also doesn’t come with a disc drive, so good luck playing your physical games!
The PS5 having no games is a running and well deserved joke in gaming culture at this point. Sony releasedAstro Botlast week, a platforming masterpiece that will go down in history as one of the best games on the system. But the same day sawConcordshut down and getting pulled from shelves, basically bringing the net total back to zero + the Demon’s Souls remake that not enough people talk about.
So if you are trying to sell an absurdly expensive new console to new and existing audiences, it’d be wise to show up with more than a technical comparison featuring a PS4 game that came out four years ago. Yet Sony was acting like slightly sharper trees and increased performance for a game that already runs at a smooth 60 frames per second on the PS5 is a gaming miracle.
Other titles include Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, and a handful of others that - for the most part - look and run reasonably well. The defining message from Cerny was that the majority of games these days force you to choose between ‘Fidelity’ and ‘Performance’ modes. You either have 30fps with a 4k image, or 60fps with considerably less. Variable refresh rate screens can split the difference, but through the use of AI and more powerful internal hardware, Sony wants to eliminate this problem altogether.
But this isn’t a $700 problem, and is instead a slight inconvenience that the majority of people are likely to overlook. Like I mentioned earlier, I am the exact type of loser who will love this sort of upgrade, but it’s so relatively minor in the grand scheme of things when PlayStation has far bigger fish to fry. When the PS4 Pro was first advertised, the platform was smashing it. Horizon Zero Dawn was months away from launch, while PlayStation was dominating the current generation with titles like Bloodborne, Infamous Second Son, and Uncharted 4. We wanted to see these games look better, and several titles in development would reap the benefits.
In 2024, that isn’t the case. We have no idea what Sony is working on right now, and games now take so long and cost so much to make that it will be years until we do. You’re seriously expecting people to pay $700 for a console so a game that comes out in a couple of years is going to look incredible, and in the meantime, you’re able to just play stuff you already own? There is no reason to care if you already own a PS5, and the gall of Sony to try and sell us on Pro without a new game in sight is frankly astonishing.
Sony will likely release a controlled allocation of stock come November and act like PS5 Pro is selling gangbusters, and maybe it will be more popular than the online masses are giving it credit for, but right now it feels like a mid-gen refresh without a purpose. PS4 Pro and Xbox One X had a reason to exist, and made games better in ways that were tangible. Here, there just doesn’t seem to be the same level of ambition and purpose. It doesn’t need to exit at all.
PS5
The PS5 is Sony’s premier gaming console launched in 2020, and it comes with both a standard and digital-only version.
