Sony announces the PS5 Pro with a larger GPU, advanced ray tracing, and AI upscaling
Sony announces the PS5 Pro with a larger GPU, advanced ray tracing, and AI upscaling
The PS5 Pro has better specs for the most demanding games.
$700, and the side by sides look barely different, from my perspective. The chat seemed to have the same opinion.
Wouldn't it be funny if like no one bought it
Like that's obviously not gonna happen but like wouldn't it be funny
Would be funnier if only scalpers bought it and couldn't unload them.
$700 is too much money. Especially if you already have a PS5.
$200 extra for reflections between cars in GT7 or slightly better shadow resolution is not worth it IMO.
My PS5 already collects dust as it is, since there are next to no games that actually make use of its hardware that I cannot already buy on PC to run at higher settings.
I agree! I wanted one for another room in my house but at this price point no way I am doing that!!!
With the last gen and the current gen being basically PC’s why not just go the PC route at this point? I am kind of at that point right now
That's actually why I went with the Xbox this cycle. I got a series x for the large TV and a $200 (on sale) series S for the smaller one (although we usually just use a computer monitor and play side by side on the couch).
If you are the only one playing the PlayStation, you can do remote play via the computer, phone ,or even from a PS4.
Fuck you, I'm trading up. Have fun living in the past!
You could buy a pretty nice PC for $700
Which could play MS and Sony games. I don’t think consoles make much sense nowadays.
It did when the ps5 first came out. $500 for it was a steal back then. I wanted to build a PC at the time but due to the crazy GPU prices and low stock for other parts I decided it was best to wait. Got a ps5 instead (was also hard to get as well) and thought it was absolutely worth the price for the experience it offered. Just built the pc I wanted last fall shortly after prices started dropping. First time ever I made a good choice.
Depending on how much you care about visuals, yeah.
A decent GPU will often be the price of an entire console. That said, even if you go with high-end hardware I found that eventually the cost will make up for itself for not having to pay for PSN to make use of and play on the internet. Or the fact that games are very often priced up to 50% more on the PS store than those on PC because there are no competing stores.
Get yours! Now with 50% more AI™
Hurry while stocks last!
That's why you build your own. It's actually really easy to do.
You absolutely will not get anything that runs even remotely decently with ray tracing on in any recent title.
For the fair comparison you're only allowed to buy new, not used parts. So, for 700$ you won't even be able to put together a decent system with a 3070 in it.
"Oh but i don't care about ray tracing" -- nice copium.
That's a lot of money for a generation that just isn't worth it.
Darn, I posted this earlier but sadly lemm.ee is having server issues. This'll be the main thread, then.
Official Blog Post | PS5 Pro Reveal Trailer
The PS5 Pro console will be available this holiday at a manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of $699.99 USD, £699.99 GBP, €799.99 EUR, and ¥119,980 JPY (includes tax). It will include a 2TB SSD, a DualSense wireless controller and a copy of Astro’s Playroom pre-installed in every PS5 Pro purchase. PS5 Pro is available as a disc-less console, with the option to purchase the currently available Disc Drive for PS5 separately.
The big question mark for me is that not only does it cost 800 euros, it does NOT come with a disc drive. There is no version of it with a disc drive like the PS5, you have to buy it as an accessory. I guess physical games really are going away.
Yeah. Almost no one I know buys physical anything anymore. Kinda sad to see it go. We really need to instill some better laws around ownership of digital goods.
I think this shift will be the end of me buying newer games, period.
I am that person who doesn’t ever buy digital. I have not bought a single digital game thus far (I haven’t pirated a game since like 2006, either). I have certainly played some, like with the PS+ subscription I got for a year when it was pretty cheap, but I wouldn’t buy them because I can’t be sure I own them, and there’s really no way to transfer the license to resell them.
If I can’t buy physical media, I simply won’t buy the games. Maybe I’ll use subscription services now and then, but more likely I’ll either find a way to play free or won’t play them at all and find other stuff. I want the physical media because I’m poor, and having the option to sell them in a pinch is important to me if I’m going to shell out a significant amount for something I’ll probably only play once, particularly since there won’t be a used game market to reduce my spend. I haven’t had to sell my games in a very long time, so I have some 400 discs, but it’s something of a savings option that inflates alongside currency, and sometimes much more.
I rent games via gamefly, I'll definitely keep using discs
Laws aren’t going to help keep the price down which is also an issue apart from the digital ownership. It’s always cheaper to buy physical games as they go on sale. What’s stopping Sony from selling PS Exclusive for $100 only in their store?
Are we going to get restricted to only buying from Sony store or is Best Buy going to sell me a box with a digital code?
I was very close to getting a digital PS5, but I still need the drive for my old PS4 games and movies. If I were just getting into Sony now though, I imagine the story would be different.
No disc drive and no fucking vertical stand/mount.
And yeah. Sony actually tried to "kill" physical games years ago with the PSP Go (?). But that was still when Gamestop and Best Buy were power houses and there was a lot of threats of "okay. We will give all the good shelf space to MS and Nintendo" and that went away fast.
But now brick and mortar are basically dead and everyone is periodically pissed at Amazon because they did an unsanctioned 2 dollar discount on a new game. So we are seeing the return.
In theory it annoys me because the playstations have always been okay-good media players and I have one of the gundam breakers on a physical disc because that was the cheapest way to get all the DLC. But for higher end digital media we are missing the codecs (because money) and physical digital media as a whole is going away. So... probably the right decision to wean people off it.
That said: Charging extra for the fucking vertical stand is just insane since a lot of us had tv stands that cannot fit the PS5 horizontally. But also, considering this looke like it is a bit taller/longer, it also can't fit it vertically so... Even more reason to build a new HTPC over the next few years.
Remap, but also Rob Zacny (so you can never tell how much is actually a bit), did a REALLY good bit where they immediately priced out the new Remarkable with all the expensive attachments and... it is still (probably) cheaper than a PS5 Pro with a disc drive and a stand.
They can still kind of kill physical games with good service. The whole “honey rather than vinegar” argument.
That’s what happened with the PSVita. While overpriced game cartridges existed, most of its lifespan people were buying its games digitally which worked great for indie developers that didn’t have a budget for physical releases.
The writing has been on the wall for physical games for some time. If you want to hold on to your games, DRM-free is better than physical.
As someone who buys expensive games, games I'm excited for, or just franchises I'm invested in, the death of discs is going to really make me reevaluate my gaming. I'll probably at least wait for a sale for every single game if I can't have a physical copy.
Almost all of my digital purchases are cheap games.
If consoles want to remain relevant in the age of the gaming PC, they have to try harder than being locked-down gaming PCs.
Free and simple multiplayer, subsidised hardware, and physical game ownership were staples of most consoles for years but now the urge to turn every device into an "everything machine" has kneecapped the very purpose of these devices.
At best, these are slightly less hassle and slightly more social than a gaming PC. At worst, they're as anti-social and user-hostile without the cost benefit that once made them genuinely preferable.
Sony will try to drag this thing out at least one more generation. If that goes like this one--and it has room to actually go worse--then Sony will have to make some hard decisions.
The side-by-sides are definitely diminished returns compared to earlier gens where hardware bumps had very noticeable gains.
I am sure the performance is measurably better than the base PS5, but I don't think it's $200-plus-separate-disc-drive better.
I also found the game choices they used for some of these comparisons to be odd picks. Sure you have "Made for PS5" exclusives like the new Ratchet and Clank, Returnal, and Spider-Man 2, but they also heavily showcased:
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The Last of Us Part 2
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God of War: Ragnarok
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Ghost of Tsushima
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Horizon: Forbidden West
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Control
All of those are last-gen games that received PS5 enhancements. Being on a base PS5, I already feel like I am getting the "better" experience compared to the default for those games, so why upgrade?
Well, as a PC gamer, there's a bunch of settings you can turn on from "last Gen" games to make them look better. Just because they ran on those machines doesn't mean you were getting the best version. If you're playing on console you're never getting the best version. This newer one can just turn on more settings and a higher resolution and framerate than the previous ones. I wish they'd let players decide what settings they want themselves, but sadly that's not happening on console anytime soon I don't think.
Chasing the "best version" is a fool's errand, though. Unless you're buying top-of-the-line hardware every cycle, you'll never have the best. And even then, there are games that seem to target future hardware by having settings so high not even top-end PCs can max them out comfortably, and other games that are just so badly optimized they'll randomly decide they hate some feature of your setup and tank the performance, too.
Everyone has their threshold for what looks good enough, and they upgrade when they reach that point. I used my last PC for 10 years before finally upgrading to a newer build, and I'm hoping to use my current one as long as well.
But just based on the displayed difference in performance between the base PS5 and the PS5 Pro, it doesn't seem like a good investment for what benefits you get. It's like paying Apple prices for marginally better hardware, and with overpriced
wheelsdisc drive sold separately.
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Why not go PC at this point. Modern consoles are locked pre-built PCs and paying $700 for a locked system is crazy.
Because of the hope that at some point someone smart will discover an exploit that will allow everyone to install their own homebrew and possibly a completely different OS which will result in a good spec PC with powerful GPU for extremely cheap.
I just remembered china was selling PCs with the PS5 hardware I think ltt(fuck them but irrelevant) did a video on it long ago and I think if you were just to dump the bios from that to a normal PS5 idk what the difference would be
I already feel like a chump for getting the PS5. There's hardly any games for it. Hell, there are some games I can't play on it. I can't imagine what's changed so drastically in the last couple years to even be worth an upgrade.
What can't you play?
Some of the transfered PS3 games (Katamari was one I remember). The Tomb Raider Puzzle game glitches (doesn't on the PS4), and it seems any game that uses an app (tried to play a trivia game with the family and it didn't work until we went to the PS4).
Not anything life or death, big named stuff works fine, but it's just annoying to have to go back to the PS4 to have things play right.
This generation is already pretty weak, and it was hard to justify the original PS5 which, after a whopping four years, still has too few exclusive titles to justify the increased price point. Now they are asking for $700 (and they increased the controller's price, too), but there's still too few next gen titles, and it doesn't even come with basic features like a disc tray and a vertical mount. Not even a better form factor, it's the same old ugly case, but somehow bigger.
The only premium thing about this thing is the price tag. $700 dollars but €800, because apparently they are dominating the European market so much that they don't even have to try to sell it at an honest price point. With all those money you can just buy a PC. I honestly don't think that many people who are interested in the console market (which, historically, has always been a "low budget" entry into modern gaming) would be willing to spend so much money on one.
I guess we circled back to the PS3 era, when Sony got drunk with overconfidence. Only, this time they'll get away with it because their main competitor is somehow even more incompetent than them. I wonder if the handheld PC market will pose a threat to their dominance in the future - at the moment, it's a very small niche.
It's just so sad. I remember back when the PS4 Pro came out and you could trade in your old PS4 for a little on top to get a Pro at GameStop. It was a night and day difference going from a base PS4 to a Pro - and merely for the price of the console, 3 random games off a list of curated games, two controllers, iirc, and 100€. It was straight gas for me.
Paying 300€ on top - realistically even more because you're not gonna sell a used PS5 for 500€ nowadays - plus the money for a disc drive and a vertical stand would set you back like 900-1000€. Completely out of their minds
Awesome, I can pay $700 to play Bloodborne in 30 fps
No no they're going to make Bloodbore 30th anniversary re-release PS5 Pro Exclusive with 45 fps
Not worth it. The PS5 games catalogue is piss poor compared to when the PS4 Pro released.
Kinda hard to make a solid catalogue when you follow the live service trend and your projects flop one after another.
Frankly that's just thinking with only PS5 exclusives in mind.
A lot of people, probably the vast majority, don't get an Xbox or PlayStation for the exclusives. They just get one because they don't own or want a gaming PC and look for the easier more accessible solution.
So to them the catalogue is just fine because they don't get the console just for the exclusives.
Not sure what the point of downvoting me is, but I'd rather be interested to hear people's counter-arguments instead. Because a lot of people seem to just assume that many console-owners have both a console and gaming PC.
I dunno I haven't really been excited for any of the games released over the last couple years. It seems like nothing but legacy games like COD/Battlefield/Destiny and a few gems like Elden Ring. Most of these big studios seem to be laying off employees or shutting down instead of releasing new games. Part of this is just me being burnt out on gaming, but with so many studios struggling, it seems like it's more than just me feeling like this.
Myself, I count the catalog of PS+ as an “exclusive feature”, plus it’s nice to play some of the PS4 games that struggled on a better machine. I loaded my God of War save and went from 30 to 60fps, which was great (sad that it was one of few games to offer PS5 enhancements in the PS4 version)
Sony’s problems are twofold:
- They are charging an absurd amount of money for a game console
- They are selling a game console that has practically no first party games for it.
If they had plenty of the latter, they could weather this. But there are still games releasing for the PS4, and they have had 1, maybe 2 PS5 releases that would qualify as first party this year (that don’t bubble down to PC).
I'm still waiting for a reason to get a PS5 at all, everything I've been interested still got released on PS4 too - except for one single game.
I really don't care for better specs anymore, I probably couldn't even tell PS4 and PS5 games apart without a side-by-side comparison. Not to mention, to see a difference at all I'd need a new TV on top of the console. Not gonna happen anytime soon.
One major improvement with the PS5 is the instant loading times. I don't think this thing will be any faster in that regard but it's a major improvement over the PS4. The other improvement over my original PS4 is that it doesn't sound like a jet engine after 20 minutes of running.
Ray tracing is cool but what console games are even using it at this point? It's like them advertising "8K capable" as if anyone gives a shit about that during a time that 4k is just barely becoming the standard for most.
Consider opening up that PS4 and cleaning out any dust. It doesn't fix the noise completely, but it can make a big difference.
You can do an SSD upgrade to reduce load times.
Consoles are a dying breed, especially Xbox and Playstation. Almost every exclusive ends up on PC anyway now, even then I personally don't think there's any game worth spending this much on hardware to play. There's literally no point in buying an Xbox or Playstation unless you really really don't want to bother with a PC setup.
I bet the market will end up as just PC and mobile. I mean the PC market share has already overtaken consoles.
I love the price. At $700 it's just what I needed to convince my friend who was holding out for the pro to move on to PC. $700 buys a pretty decent AMD card nowadays. Shit for $800 we're talking decent refurbished gaming PCs.
Are there enough exclusives to justify buying one? 🤔
concord
Too soon
If you have to ask, not really no.
A base PS5 maybe if you like the franchises and want a hassle-free "just gaming" experience on a console. Many of them exist on PC nowadays though. And 800€ for a console is just robbery
Only if you haven’t got a PC.
The PS5 is already a very powerful piece of hardware that most devs aren't making full use of. I honestly can't see any justification in a hardware upgrade other than some Sony execs thinking it'll be the end of the world if they don't put out something new to make some profit line continue to go up.
So far I've traded in all my Playstations for the latest versions. But this price-hike and no disc-drive are a dealbreaker. Guess I'm going for a new gaming PC and a Steam Deck now. Too bad Sony, you messed up.
Ah, continuing with the ugly AF design language I see. Guess I'm skipping the entire PS5 gen then. See you guys for the PS6!
No kidding. I am shocked they somehow made it even uglier. Was really hoping for a simpler, less obnoxious design.
It's a pity SONY didn't have any games to announce alongside the new console. There is nothing or there I feel like I need more power to play, and I already completed games they demoed, sometimes years ago.
Absolutely agree with this statement. They seem to have no pipeline for keeping up with this console lifecycle.
As the owner of a Series X and PS5, they're just streaming boxes that I occasionally use to play stuff that won't run under Proton.
At the beginning of this generation, I planned to buy a used PS5 when the Pro version was coming. I did not know that the PS5 would have almost no games for me (especially because they released the big ones for me on PC), the base PS5 would cost even more, and most people will not upgrade to the Pro because of its absurd pricing (note because it’s not worth it, but because the market for it is likely very niche).
I guess I will just skip Sony’s platform for this generation.
SIX HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE US DOLLARS
FOR NO DISC DRIVE
The price increase is insane. That does not seem to scale in comparison with what you'll get in return over a regular PS5, especially if you're gonna be forced to buy the digital editions from the PS store, which are outside of the sales often the most expensively priced versions too, I've practically only bought second-hand discs for my PS5 because of that.
So either games will start running at higher framerates on real 4K, like 60FPS and up. Or developers will get lazy and stop bothering to optimise for the older generation of PS5, which will then be an excuse to upgrade to the more expensive edition to play at 4K and/or 60FPS.
I really hope the latter won't be a thing for the sake of both players and game development, there's been enough unoptimised shit lately and I hope we can move forward again.
That optimization part is what worries me. I still remember games like Control & Cyberpunk being basically unplayable unless you had a PS4 Pro.
Yep, people have rose tinted glasses but GTA V had a massive pop in issue on the consoles it released, the proper version was the PS4 one. Or PC.
Yeah I'm afraid that stuff like GTA6 might run like absolute dogshit on the old PS5, because they will see the opportunity to make use of the better hardware to sell the 4K and 60FPS. No doubt even Sony will try to push this, trying to sell more of these Pros.
I do hope we will move forward, but I think money and greed will play too much of a role in this. We don't even really need a PS5 Pro right now, looking at the current line-up of games that run fine on the old PS5, even in 4K and 60FPS, as long as developers spend the time to optimise their games instead of throwing everything on to raytracing (which I find is still in a very experimental phase).
SEVEN HUNDRED US DOLLARS!
Sony costumers need to remind them of the PS3.
IT'S RIDGE RACER! RIIIDGE RACER! Remember that one?
I hope that series comes back someday.
They need to pump out more games to justify this. I see no reason to upgrade as mine already sits and collects dust. The controller is super awesome tho, use it all the time for my PC.
Sony thinks so too, which is why they increase the controller's price, lol.
I pretty much only use mine to play the exclusives since I don’t have a good PC and watch films on 4K blu-rays. My Series X gets far more use (more storage, more games in my library since I’ve been using Xbox since the 360 and a more comfortable controller).
Is there an eli5 on how "ai upscaling" is less (or even equally) technologically demanding than just putting in better hardware?
The game is rendered at a lower resolution, this saves a lot of resources. This isn't a linear thing, lowering the resolution reduces the performance needed by a lot more than you would think. Not just in processing power but also bandwidth and memory requirements. Then dedicated AI cores or even special AI scaler chips get used to upscale the image back to the requested resolution. This is a fixed cost and can be done with little power since the components are designed to do this task.
My TV for example has an AI scaler chip which is pretty nice (especially after tuning) for showing old content on a large high res screen. For games applying AI up scaling to old textures also does wonders.
Now even though this gets the AI label slapped on, this is nothing like the LMMs such as chat GPT. These are expert systems trained and designed to do exactly one thing. This is the good kind of AI that's actually useful instead of the BS AI like LLMs. Now these systems have their limitations, but for games the trade off between details and framerate can be worth it. Especially if our bad eyes and mediocre screens wouldn't really show the difference anyways.
This is the good kind of AI that’s actually useful instead of the BS AI like LLMs
lol, trying to hedge against downvotes from the anti-AI crowd?
The game is rendered at a lower resolution, this saves a lot of resources.
Then dedicated AI cores or even special AI scaler chips get used to upscale the image back to the requested resolution.
I get that much. Or at least, I get that's the intention.
This is a fixed cost and can be done with little power since the components are designed to do this task.
This us the part I struggle to believe/understand. I'm roughly aware of how resource intensive upscaling is on locally hosted models. The necessary tech/resources to do that to 4k+ in real time (120+ fps) seems at least equivalent, if not more expensive, to just rendering it that way in the first place. Are these "scaler chips" really that much more advanced/efficient?
Further questions aside, I appreciate the explanation. Thanks!
It started as good tech to make GPUs last longer, but now is a crutch that even top notch hardware like a 4090 needs to actually achieve playable performance with ray tracing at high resolutions. And that hardware is already way overpriced, imagine the price of something that could do it natively.
Huh, I wasn't aware that 4090s use similar tech. That sheds light on a few things. Thanks!
Not really on topic, but AI upscaling is no joke. It's actually very useful and saves alot processing power. Same with the extra fps, making a 30fps into a 60fps with ease.
Don’t they already use FSR on the 5?
FSR doesn't use AI hardware. The original comment is overselling it a bit, but something AI-driven like DLSS does offer substantial (if slightly blurry) framerate gains.
No game should be running down at 60fps these days, especially with any sort of upscaling. Native performance should be the only measured metric, no need for shortcuts when hardware is as good as it is.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=MApTG1wapJA&si=6CIbRLjbfUwV29IT
Great video showing the difference of the two
I do feel for Sony's PR teams. Trying to explain the concept of visual improvements in 4K over Youtube's increasingly vaseline-smeared compression is an impossible task.
What do I do with my PS5 discs if I buy the Pro one day? Are they just unusable? Will I be able to get a digital copy for free since I already paid them for the disc they stopped supporting?
It seems like there's no sane migration path from PS5 with disc drive to the PS5 Pro.
What game would even justify that price tag lol and no disk tray.
I don't know if It turns out that I was stupid for not buying the original PS5 or holding out for a Pro one even from back then.
I was looking forward to this a lot because I could get the better version from day 1 and have a lot of games to play from taking and borrowing my brother's disc games.
I guess I'll get the XBSX for GTA VI when it comes.
Not like holding out matters now, they just raised the price in Japan for the 3rd time, second wind said the controller got 5 dollars more expensive, you can only save with used nowadays.
I don’t see the point in this. I’m already planning to get a PC (and a Radeon 7900 XTX will always outperform a PS5), so it’s just more money for no benefit.
gta 6 gets delayed... sony releases this early to sell more ps6's ?
At this price I’m so glad I decided to go for a slim instead of holding out for the pro. Absolutely no way.
I can't see how this is worth it for anyone. Are there even games that are pushing the current PS5?
No disc drive either.
No disc drive either.
I'm out
There are games that perform poorly, but to my understanding that's not the hardware's fault
How good is the GPU? Is it better than my 4070ti super boi?
Not even close. Your GPU decimates it.
PS5 pro: 33.5 TF 4070ti super: 44 TF
All teraflops are not the same but this is a big enough delta for me to say no, your card is better.
4070 ti super
What? There's cards with both
tiandsuperin the name‽
This GPU bump is pretty big it's almost a PS6. Keeping the old Zen2 CPU is disappointing though.
I'm sure at some point devs will make good use of the extra power. And by that point this puppy will be half the cost MSRP to snatch up.
I love sunny and have 2 ps5s. This thing is DOA.