Sony’s mid-generation refresh is official with the PS5 Pro

Via a special presentation this morning, Sony took the wraps off of the PS5 Pro, a mid-gen power bump for the console.

Bells and whistles

How do mid-generational console refreshes hit you? They’ve kind of become the norm in the last few decades, with most hardware makers offering some kind of smaller form-factor or power increase in the midst or even near the close of a console generation.

So far this gen, we’ve seen Sony do the former with the PS5 Slim, and now the company has completed the circuit with latter as well. That news arrived today, by way of a video presentation that took the wraps off of the PS5 Pro. And while we’re always dubious when it comes to these launches, it’s a machine that actually seems to serve up some interesting new additions.

Chiefly among those is an upgraded GPU that will offer faster rendering for gameplay, double or triple (depending) the amount of ray tracing that the current PS5 is capable of, and an “AI-driven” upscaling feature that could potentially be pretty darn neat. Called “PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution”, this is exactly what it sounds like, and according to Sony, will utilize machine learning to deliver “super sharp image clarity by adding an extraordinary amount of detail”.

From the look of the games displayed, there definitely is a difference when the new features are enacted.

Coming up fast

As rumors had suggested, Sony won’t keep fans waiting too long for this new revision. The company says that the PS5 Pro will be out and on retail shelves in time for the holidays, landing in stores on November 7th, 2024. The package will include the console, stocked with a 2TB SSD, plus a pre-installed copy of Astro’s Playroom and a DualSense controller.

The PS5 Pro continues hardware companies’ push to make gaming digital only however, and so it will not include a disc drive. No, there won’t be a separate SKU to give you that option like with the PS5 Slim, it’s just the one offering.

That’s not to say that you can’t upgrade though, as the current PS5 Slim disc drive (available separately from the console) will be attachable to the PS5 Pro. So if you prefer your games physical, you can still get ’em that way by picking up the add-on drive ($79.99 USD).

All that new power doesn’t come cheap though, and yes as you’d imagine, the PS5 Pro will be tagged in higher than the current crop of Sony consoles. The console is set to be priced at $699.99 USD. That’s a $200 increase over the current disc-based PS5 Slim ($499.99 USD), and a $250 increase over the Slim’s all-digital version.

Source: PlayStation Blog