Sony announces PS5 Pro, which costs £699/$699 and doesn’t come with a stand

The
worst
kept
secret
in
the
industry
has
finally
been
announced.
During
a
short
event
earlier
today,
Mark
Cerny
of

PlayStation
revealed
the
PS5
Pro,
a
powered-up
version
of
the
existing
console,
and
you
better
be
prepared
to
sell
a
few
organs
if
you
want
to
buy
one.

Arriving
on
November
7,
the
new
PS5
Pro
boasts
a
terrifying
price-tag
of
£699/$699
with
pre-orders
going
live
on
September
26.
For
context,
the
PS5
(with
disc
drive)
launched
in
2020
for
£449.99/$499.99.

So,
what
exactly
are
you
getting
for
money?
Well,
according
to
the
brief
presentation,
the
main
aim
of
the
PS5
Pro
is
to
put
an
end
to
the
current
trend
of
having
Performance
and
Fidelity
modes.
In
other
words,
it
seeks
to
marry
the
60FPS,
usually
targeted
by
performance
modes,
with
all
the
visual
bells
and
whistles
of
Fidelity
mode.
It
sounds
pretty
good
on
paper,
delivering
on
the
initial
promise
of
this
generation
of
hardware.

It’ll
achieve
this
thanks
to
a
few
things,
starting
with
a
beefier
GPU
which
Sony
says
“has
67
percent
more
Compute
Units
than
the
current
PS5
and
28
percent
faster
memory.
Overall,
this
enables
up
to
45
percent
faster
rendering.”

The
more
powerful
GPU
will
be
aided
by
PlayStation
Spectral
Super
Resolution,
the
company’s
own
version
of
upscaling
using
machine
learning.

There’s
also
new
Ray
Tracing
tech
under
the
hood,
with
Sony
boasting
that
“this
allows
the
rays
to
be
cast
at
double,
and
at
times
triple,
the
speeds
of
the
current
PS5
console.”
And
yes,
casting
rays
does
make
it
sound
like
the
PS5
Pro
has
a
small
wizard
packed
away
somewhere,
which
would
be
a
truly
excellent
selling
point.

Alll
of
this
will
be
packed
into
a
slightly
redesigned
shell
that
has
the
same
dimensions
as
the
current
PS5
slim
model.
You’ll
also
get
double
the
storage
at
2TB.
And
yes,
Astro’s
Playroom
will
come
pre-installed.

The
Pro
won’t
ship
with
a
disc
drive,
so
if
you
want
to
play
physical
media,
be
it
games
or
4K
movies,
you’ll
need
to
shell
out
another
£100
for
the
standalone
disc
drive.
Oh,
and
for
some
fucking
stupid
reason
the
new
console
won’t
come
with
a
vertical
stand
by
default,
so
if
you
want
that
you’ll
need
to
spend
another
£25,
bringing
the
grand
total
to
£825.

Will
the
PS5
Pro
improve
all
your
old
games?
Yes,
according
to
Sony.
The
new
PS5
Pro
Game
Boost
will
apply
to
over
8,500
older
games
across
PS5
and
PS4.

According
to
Sony,
“This
feature
may
stabilize
or
improve
the
performance
of
supported
PS4
and
PS5
games.
Enhanced
image
quality
for
PS4
games
is
also
available
to
improve
the
resolution
on
select
PS4
games.”

My
assumption
is
that
the
enhanced
image
quality
will
come
from
the
PlayStation
Spectral
Super
Resolution.

As
for
games
that
will
take
advantage
of
the
PS5
Pro
straight
out
of
the
box,
Sony
has
announced
a
handful
of
titles
that
will
be
marked
as
“PS5
pro
Enhanced.”