There’s good news and bad news for fans of the PlayStation 5. If the latest reports are to be believed, the long-rumoured PS5 Pro will finally be unveiled in the next two to three weeks. Sony is expected to announce the device during an imminent PlayStation State of Play conference, where we’ll finally find out how powerful it is, when exactly it will be released and how much it will cost. With Sony confirming plans to attend the Tokyo Game Show towards the end of September, chances are attendees will be able to get hands-on with the PS5 Pro before launch. If it is announced in September, then we may still see the console in 2024, while any later and the device would almost certainly have a 2025 release date.
The news comes courtesy of industry insider and trusted source Billbil-Kun, who claims to have seen the device.
According to an article on DealLabs, the PS5 Pro is reportedly a little bigger than the PS5 Slim and features three black stripes across the middle of the main faceplate.
There is, however, some confusion about whether or not the PS5 Pro will launch with a disc-player.
While a disc-free PS5 Pro would potentially keep the manufacturing costs down, the lack of a disc-drive is likely to be a big issue for some fans. It’s particularly bad news for gamers who favour physical games over digital.
Indeed, if it’s anything like the PS5 Slim, then you should be able to attach a separate disc drive, but this will make things even more expensive for certain fans.
With previous reports suggesting that the PS5 Pro will be far better equipped to handle Unreal Engine 5 games (compared to the regular PS5), things are certainly looking up for fans of the PlayStation.
If the PS5 Pro is unveiled in September, a November launch seems like a logical choice for Sony.
According to the Sony documents, the PS5 Pro should perform about 45% faster than the current model. The larger GPU will reportedly use faster system memory to improve ray-tracing by up to three times.
The PS5 Pro CPU will be the same as the current model, but will have a mode that can increase performance by around 10%.
“Trinity has a mode that targets 3.85GHz CPU frequency,” reads a report on The Verge. “Sony will offer developers the ability to pick between a ‘standard mode’ at 3.5GHz or the ‘high CPU frequency mode’ at 3.85GHz.”
Finally, developers will have access to more system memory with the PS5 Pro, which should make it easier to improve resolutions and increase frame-rates.
Games that deliver significant improvements will reportedly ship with a PS5 Pro Enhanced tag to make it easier for the customer to identify titles that utilise the console’s superior architecture.