Leaked PS5 Pro Rumored for Holiday 2024 Might Be Disappointing
The console might say “Pro” in its name, but it might not make much of a difference for your games.
Four years after the PS5’s release, we may finally be getting the PS5 Pro.
Thanks to some additional leaks over the weekend, we now have most of the specs for Sony’s alleged upcoming refreshed console. The leaks started with YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead, but were later corroborated by Insider Gaming.
Specs show that the PS5 Pro will use the same CPU as the base model, but offer an option for “High CPU Frequency Mode.” Besides letting you overclock, the PS5 Pro is supposed to get audio and graphics upgrades to earn that “pro” label. That would equate to about a 10 percent boost in CPU performance over the first-gen PS5.
Better Graphics and AI Upscaling
According to Insider Gaming, the PS5 Pro will render 45 percent faster than the base model thanks to a total of 33.5 teraflops, while also getting an upgraded AI accelerator and custom machine learning architecture. The leaks also say that the PS5 Pro will get something called “PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution Upscaling,” which would reportedly allow the upcoming console to hit 4K resolution at 120 fps or 8K resolution at 60 fps. This could be similar to upscaling graphics technologies like Nvidia’s popular DLSS technology, which uses AI to increase resolution and generate additional frames for smoother gameplay. Of course, if you’re upscaling to 8K resolution, you’ll need to buy an 8K TV if you don’t already have one, and those still aren’t very affordable.
The PS5 Pro may even get up to two or three times the ray tracing performance, and potentially up to quadruple the performance in certain cases. This improved ray tracing means an even more immersive gaming experience, but you will only get to take advantage of this with a select few PS5 titles that support this feature, like Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring, or Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Improving ray tracing performance is good, but kind of pointless when most games, like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, don’t support real-time lighting. It also looks like the detachable disc drive isn’t going anywhere since the leaks point out that the PS5 Pro will still use this design and offer 1TB of storage space.
Looking at the PS4 compared to the PS4 Pro, we can better understand the potential choices that Sony is making with its PS5 Pro. The PS4 Pro ran into a similar problem where it supported up to 4K resolution even though most game developers didn’t make their games in native 4K format. In the same vein, the PS4 Pro ran on a similar processor to the base model but featured a better GPU.
If you’re looking for 8K resolution or ray tracing, the PS5 Pro may be for you.
Rumored For Holiday 2024 Release
Even though the PS5 Pro’s specs have reportedly leaked, we haven’t heard any details on pricing. If Sony plans to follow the PS4’s pricing where the Pro model was $100 more, we can expect the PS5 Pro to start anywhere between $549 and $599.
Insider Gaming says that Sony is targeting a 2024 holiday release for the PS5 Pro. We’re overdue for a refreshed PS5, especially since the console’s latest sales numbers have not been inspiring, as reported by Bloomberg.
“Looking ahead, PS5 will enter the latter stage of its life cycle,” said Naomi Matsuoka, senior vice president at Sony. “As such, we will put more emphasis on the balance between profitability and sales. For this reason, we expect the annual sales pace of PS5 hardware to start falling from the next fiscal year.”
If what Matsuoka says is true and the PS5 is nearing the “latter stage of its lifecycle,” we may be looking at a shorter overall lifecycle for the console than the PS4, which enjoyed seven years on the market before the PS5 was introduced, and still had legs years into the PS5’s early days.
Assuming that the leaks are true and the PS5 Pro does come out later this year, that should leave you with plenty of time to decide if the console is worth the upgrade or not.
