![[Opinion] The PlayStation 5 Pro rumours need to stop.](https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/b16b8ccc-24ac-4857-8627-e70fd77fc4f7.webp){kind=link}
We’ve all heard the rumours by now.
PS5 Pro dev kits sent to first party studios
PS5 Pro targeting 4K60
PS5 Pro definitely coming in 2024
These rumours are typically being started by “industry analysts,” the same ones that were 100% positive that in 2021 the Switch Pro was “imminent.” And when it didn’t happen they said the Switch Pro was “imminent” in 2022, then 2023. You get the idea. It simply doesn’t exist.
I also believe the PlayStation 5 Pro doesn’t exist.
When the PS4 and Xbox One arrived they were massively underpowered the day they launched with many games struggling to reach a stable 1080p60fps so for this consoles an upgrade was desperately needed and it wasn’t going to wait 7 years for a new generation, so we got a one-off mid-gen upgrade for each system.
The PS4 Pro and Xbox One X were capable of 1080p60fps and even 4K30 with some graphical and rendering wizardry and all was well in the world.
Fast forward to 2020 and the PlayStation 5 is not hugely underpowered at launch and still isn’t underpowered today. It’s perfectly capable of 4K60 if you’re happy to turn off the ray tracing or 4K30 with RTX on.
So do we need a PS5 Pro?
When you consider that very few games (if any) are utilising the full extent of the power available from the PS5 and the fact that even today (February 2024) big AAA games from leading developers like Codemasters are still being announced for PS4 & PS5 with games like F1 24 then we are in no need of a PlayStation 5 Pro.
It’s also worth pointing out that 4K televisions aren’t yet the norm with estimates from mid-2023 saying just 40% of US homes have at least one 4K TV. So most people are still gaming on consoles in 1080p.
A final point that makes me firmly believe the PS5 Pro happen is price.
We’re 3+ years into the life of the PS5 and around this time we’d usually have seen at least one price cut, especially with the release of the PS5 Slim. The sole purpose of which is to save Sony money by cutting production costs. Yet the PS5 is actually MORE EXPENSIVE now than it was on launch day in 2020 despite Sony having saved money by switching to the revised PS5 model.
So how much would a PS5 Pro cost?
The same “industry analysts” expect the PS5 Pro to be in the £650 - £750 price range. Bearing in mind that it will be replaced in a little over 3 years by the PlayStation 6 if they stick to their 7 year generation cycle.
So what about the rumours?
I strongly believe the analysts are drawing the wrong conclusions about what they’re hearing and that the rumours are actually very early PS6 details and NOT PS5 details.
Do you think there will be a PS5 Pro and would you buy one for £750 if it came out?
I think it’s a mistake to have many different power levels on consoles of a same generation.
It complicates development and users have difficulty to know what we can expect of a game.
On consoles, we’re used to everyone having the same experience because the hardware is the same. PC is a different thing, but console gamers, in my opinion, don’t these inconveniences from the PC world.
And the fact that games aren’t fully exploiting the potential of the ps5 is another argument against a PS5 pro.
It’s just a better GPU. It doesn’t affect development of mechanics or anything. It’s just light graphics effects and some light testing of a couple settings.
I’m not techie at all so I don’t have enough knowledge, but I’d still prefer if consoles kept just one performance level.
Why?
It will literally almost certainly never once affect you in any way if they add a more expensive option with better GPU performance. It’s a bunch of orders of magnitude less than trivial to support both.
If it could be proven that these ps5 pro models aren’t gonna be affecting me and my ps5 basic in any way, I wouldn’t mind.
Anyway, Sony is taking that decision 😅
A few counterpoints:
- I see you quoted GBP. Afaik the PS5 models in the US and Japan are still the same price they launched at, the UK increased because the currency lost value. Not to say that what you’re experiencing is not real, but I don’t think Sony would say “well it makes sense to do. A PS5 pro in the US, Japan, and other markets but not in the UK, so I guess we just aren’t going to do one”. It might impact the volume that gets shipped to the UK, but it wouldn’t stop the development and production globally. There are less PS5’s in the UK now than the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, or even Belgium. All of Europe and the UK combined are less than the US, and only slightly more than Japan.
-in the US, we had over a decade of very little inflation before COVID, and my understanding is that most of Europe and Japan did as well. COVID led to a significant spike in inflation. Keeping the nominal price stable through inflation is effectively a price decrease. The Switch has been $300 for it’s entire life too right?
- Analysts are going to keep predicting newer and more powerful hardware. It’s easy and generated clicks. Maybe Sony will call it a PS5 Pro, or maybe if enough time passes they’ll call it a PS6. Since they’ve moved to X86, assuming backwards compatibility back to PS4, it seems like the difference between whether to call something PS5 Pro vs PS6 is just marketing.
That being said, I do see reasons why I agree with you. The point about 4k TV’s is valid. Especially when you factor in what any multiplatform developer needs to account for: the Switch is probably less powerful than the phone im typing this on at this point, the Xbox is limited by the Series S, and PC GPU’s are still crazy expensive to the point where 4k gaming is reserved for high-end rigs or lightweight games.
The PS5 Slim digital is $50 more expensive than the launch digital model. Which considering it’s cheaper to produce actually stings a lot more than the when they hiked the price of the launch model by £30.
While 4k doesn’t have huge adoption yet, it’s not like it’s a high barrier to entry. I think I bought a 4K TV for like $250 for work. And 4K monitors are attainable for around 200, or much less if you go used.
The “Pro” isn’t aimed at people who don’t already have a 4K TV. It’s aimed at people who bought 4K TVs when they first came out, before any normal person bought one.
The PS5 pro should be targeted at 4k 120/144 with raytracing or 8K. I don’t think the tech is there to do it affordably though. Maybe Nvidia 5000 series and AMD 8000 series will do that for a sane price.
My nans have 4k TVs. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t have at least one in their home.