The PS5 Pro Looks Like A Mess

The PS5 Pro has just been revealed, and it really is not looking that great for a lot of people. Many find it underwhelming; I've seen a lot of disappointment. First and foremost, of course, the PS5 Pro feels egregious at $700 for a new console with no disc drive or stand included. From what they showed regarding upgrades, it doesn't feel like a $700 leap.

They say that the PS5 Pro improves over the regular PS5 in three major ways; they call them the big three: larger GPU, Advanced Ray Tracing, and AI-driven upscaling. Sure, these are improvements, and they did give some numbers about how much faster and more powerful the Pro is.

Before that, here are the facts about the PS5 Pro that were unveiled to add some context. It will be released on November 7, 2024, with pre-orders on September 26, 2024. It has that controversial price tag of $699.99. It is more powerful than the base PS5 model, with 67% more computing units and 28% more graphics memory.

According to Mark Cerny at the showcase, such improvements translate to a 45% faster rendering performance boost. The base model comes with 2 TB storage but lacks a disc drive. Aside from the performance increase, the console seems to be able to run PS4 titles natively and even improve the visuals and performance a little with AI-driven upscaling.

But I do notice a significant uptick in one area: In The Last of Us Part 2, running on the PS5 Pro, there's tons more detail, and it hits a smooth 60 frames per second. The difference is clear compared to the PS5's Fidelity Mode, which runs at a somewhat choppy-feeling 30 FPS. But even then, I just don't think it justifies the $700 price tag.

Another comparison they would like to make is between PS5 Pro and PS5's Performance Mode, both running at 60 FPS. For this, yes, the Pro is definitely sharper and crisper. But let's be real here: I sat looking at those shots for quite a bit and couldn't make that much of a difference, save for maybe some text way off in the distance looking a little darker, which, come on, who cares?

Some may argue that the footage in the showcase looks underwhelming due to YouTube’s compression, and it looks much better in person. While I understand that it may look even better outside of a YouTube video, even so, this showcase is a weak justification for that $700 price.

Then there's the parade scene from Ratchet & Clank, where distant details are supposed to be clearer. Again, it was difficult to identify the differences here. While yes, you can say that the crowds look more detailed when you zoom in, I don’t see any situation where a player would feel the need to pause a game and zoom in at the parts of the game where the main focus isn’t in. This change is just not worth burning $700 over.

The best is when they show Marvel's Spider-Man 2, which apparently has a "noticeable" bump in resolution. Yet, I watch that footage and don't see a difference. At one point, I felt the PS5 version looked crisper than the Pro version. The leaves look the same; the cars do, too.

That's just too much minutiae to be worth $700. And here’s the kicker: The base version of the console is digital only, so you have to spend even more to get the disc drive add-on to play your physical titles. This certainly makes replacing the disc drive easier, but at a steep price like that, it feels like a no-brainer to include the disc version as well.