After months of rumours and speculation, Sony has finally unveiled the PlayStation 5 Pro console, an update to its current machine, offering improved technical specifications and a 2TB solid-state drive for £699 or $699. It will be released on 7 November, with pre-orders starting on 26 September.
It’s an expensive machine compared to current systems, costing £300 more than the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition, which retails for £390. It’s also digital-only – if you want to play games or movies on Blu-ray discs, you’ll need to add a Blu-ray player for an extra £100.
For the price, what you get is an upgraded graphics processing unit (GPU) that features 67% more compute units than the original model (compute units are the individual processors inside a GPU, which work in parallel to execute multiple threads of data simultaneously). With a 28% increase in system memory, Sony is claiming This will mean a 45% increase in graphics rendering in games that support the upgraded machine. The Pro console will also support more advanced ray tracing, a visual effect that brings dynamic reflections to surfaces like glass and water. Enhanced games will also be able to offer an 8K mode.
Sony says that games patched to be compatible with the updated hardware will be identified with a “PS5 Pro Enhanced” label. These will include many of the company’s first-party PS5 titles such as Horizon Forbidden West, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. Third-party publishers have also pledged support for the machine with titles including Alan Wake 2, Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, Dragon’s Dogma 2, and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth all set to provide Pro enhancements.
To complement the rest of the back catalogue, PS5 Pro promises AI-powered upscaling of games to improve their performance on the new hardware. Sony also revealed what it calls PS5 Pro Game Boost, which will improve the visual performance of “over 8,500” backwards-compatible PS4 games.
Console makers have long opted to update their consoles after several years on the market. In the past, this usually meant more compact designs, such as the PS2 Slim, but the previous generation of Sony and Microsoft consoles saw significant technical upgrades with the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X.
Industry opinion is divided on how Sony’s latest update will fare, especially in a tough economy and without a major new game launch or new AV technology to back it up. As analyst Rob Fahey points out wrote recently:“PS4 Pro justified its existence in a very simple way: many consumers had upgraded to 4K displays in the previous years, and Pro delivered a version of the PS4 that could support those displays.” In X, memes have been ruthless.
However, veteran industry watcher Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis He told VGC PS5 Pro sales are expected to be around 1.3 million during the launch window, and around 13 million units by 2029. One major factor that could boost sales is the announced arrival of Grand Theft Auto 6 in fall 2025, which will almost certainly be the best-selling game of its generation. Prior to Sony’s announcement, most experts expected the PS5 Pro to launch to coincide with GTA 6, thus capitalising on the hype and securing its status as the most powerful console to play the new game. However, it could be that Sony is buying itself time to announce a price cut or bundle closer to the launch of Rockstar’s game.
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For now, the PS5 Pro is the culmination of a rocky month for Sony, which has seen its online shooter Concord pulled from sale after just two weeks, but also the huge critical success of its first-party platformer Astro Bot – a game that doesn’t rely on high-tech visual realism. The industry’s eyes will now be on Microsoft for its response. There are persistent rumours that the Redmond company is veering in a different direction, planning a portable version of the Xbox to compete in the burgeoning PC handheld gaming market against devices like the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally X. With prices for these machines reaching as high as £800, this could be an expensive time for console consumers.
