tThe PlayStation 5 Pro was announced in September and people immediately reacted with disbelief at the price: £699/$699, without disc drive. Adjusted for inflation, it is the second most expensive game console ever released, surpassed only by the PlayStation 3, whose price was quickly reduced when it turned out that no one was willing to do so. work a second job to afford one. It is an addition to the original PS5 model, rather than a replacement. All games released so far work on Pro and all future PS5 games will work on both models.
For your money, you get an upgraded GPU (graphics processing unit), which is overall 45% more powerful than the original PS5; Improved AI, which makes images more detailed; and advanced ray tracing, which improves lighting. Simply put, it’s supposed to make all PS5 games prettier and faster.
My partner and I bought one last week, with an extra disk drive to complement the 2TB of storage (£100 extra, although these are now in short supply). For context: I mostly play on my Steam Deck or my Nintendo Switch, and I can only tell the difference between 30 FPS and 60 FPS. I appreciate a great game (God of War and Ratchet and Clank have blown me away on PS5), but graphical performance isn’t very important to me. Meanwhile, my partner is an early adopter and PC gamer forever and is very invested in its technology. Here is our verdict.
The idea behind this console update is to remove all compromises. The original PS5’s graphics options let you choose between fidelity and performance: how good everything looks versus how fast everything moves. Choose fidelity and the lighting and detail of each scene will be better, but the frame rate will be lower. Choose performance and the frame rate will be higher, making things feel smooth during gameplay, but some of the fancier lighting effects and details will be disabled. With the PS5 Pro, the compromises have been eliminated: now you can have greater details at a higher frame rate.
Whether you can actually see this difference will largely depend on your TV. If you don’t have a 4K TV, for example, this console doesn’t make any sense. Most high-end TVs now have plenty of built-in effects and features that smooth out the frame rate and improve the look and performance of what you’re playing, so the difference may not seem as big as you’d expect. Personally, as someone who doesn’t invest in high-end technology at all, I can see and feel a small but noticeable difference when comparing the same game on PS5 and Pro on our 4K TV. My companion, whose eye is better trained for these things, feels that the contrast is more evident.
This lack of compromise is what tech-minded gamers expected from this console generation in the first place, so it’s nice to finally have it. In fact, I think the ideal customer for the PS5 Pro is someone who has been putting off purchasing a PS5 because it didn’t seem like enough of an upgrade from the PS4. Most people are unlikely to replay a PS5 exclusive like Spider-Man 2 or Horizon Forbidden West simply because it looks a little better on an upgraded console. But if you have never played these games, now you can enjoy them to the fullest.
Speaking of enjoying games to the fullest: this console has a feature called PS5 Pro Game Boost, which also improves the more than 8,500 backwards compatible PlayStation 4 games. Some of the best PS4 games have already been remastered specifically for PS5, including The Last of Us parts I and II and Horizon Zero Dawn, but many have not and benefit greatly from this update. The difference here would be noticeable to anyone.
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Sony has typically released these upgraded consoles just after the midpoint of a PlayStation’s lifespan, so we can assume we’ll get three to four years of use out of the PS5 Pro before the PlayStation 6 arrives. As for whether it’s worth the money? If you already have a really good TV, you like having the latest technology, and you haven’t yet played every PS5 game worth playing, you will, like my partner, be very happy with it. It’s a nice-to-have, rather than essential. You can rest assured that if, like me, you’re reluctant to pay that much for any gaming console, you’re not missing out on much.