Whispers of a more powerful reboot to the PlayStation 5 have been circling for some time, but the reveal of this long-rumoured PS5 Pro console could be just hours away. That’s because Sony will host a surprise PlayStation 5 Technical Presentation today (September 10) from 4pm BST.
The nine-minute presentation, which was announced out-of-nowhere less than 24-hours ago, will be hosted by PlayStation 5 lead architect Mark Cerny. Viewers can watch live via the official PlayStation YouTube or Twitch channels, which Sony says will focus on “PS5 and innovations in gaming technology”.
But industry analysts believe the short live stream will finally offer a glimpse at the PS5 Pro console that’ll go head-to-head with the revised Xbox Series X announced earlier this summer.
Did Sony just tease the PS5 Pro in their 30th anniversary image👀? pic.twitter.com/vXOAEUdu2f
— JorRaptor (@Jorraptor) September 5, 2024
Earlier this year, tipsters revealed that Sony’s in-house studios had been developing console games on early iterations of the upgraded hardware as far back as September 2023, while third-party developers were given access in January 2024, according to Insider Gaming.
More recently, leaks from within Sony seems to have confirmed the PS5 Pro’s existence and name. An unlisted video on the official PlayStation YouTube channel was briefly titled “PS5 Pro” before being renamed, as reported by industry insider Wario64 on X, formerly Twitter.
This slip-up follows a teaser of the console design that featured in Sony’s 30th anniversary celebrations. In official artwork celebrating the history of the console, which was shared on Instagram with the caption Your First Look by Sony, eagle-eyed gamers spotted a design similar to the current PS5 Slim, but with additional grooves on its exterior. Many now believe this’ll be the hardware design of the more powerful PS5 Pro.
PS5 Technical Presentation hosted by Mark Cerny live from 4pm BST
Aside from a shiny new case, PlayStation 5 Pro is rumoured to boast significant technical upgrades over its predecessor. Whispers suggest it’ll pack a more powerful GPU, potentially offering up to 45% faster graphics rendering.
Interestingly, the chipset powering the PS5 Pro will be identical to the original console, which launched back in 2020. However, the Pro will offer a “High CPU Frequency Mode,” that can take the CPU up to 3.85GHz — a 10% increase over the standard console.
Sources with knowledge of the PS5 Pro plans suggest it’ll keep the same 1TB SSD drive introduced with the revised slim model of PS5 and PS5 Digital Edition, launched last year. This was an increase from the 825GB that launched with the original console, of which 667.2GB was usable space.
One of the most anticipated features is the rumoured PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) technology, which could rival Nvidia’s DLSS and AMD’s FSR. If you’re not familiar with the initialisms, these technologies essentially enable intelligent upscaling — rendering frames at a lower resolution to boost frame-rate (critical for fast-paced gameplay since it can improve reaction time from players) and then using machine learning to upscale the image quality of the frames so that they look as sharp as the native resolution.
Using this rumoured PSSR system, Sony could finally offer 8K gameplay on the PS5 Pro — a feature that was promised with the original console, but later removed from the packaging.
Ray-tracing capabilities, which maps-out light across a digital scene to calculate where shadows would fall in real-life, is also tipped to be significantly enhanced, with up to 3x the performance of the current PS5 console. This could lead to more realistic lighting, reflections, and shadows in upcoming games.
Although the PS5 Pro will be powered by the same chipset as the standard model, industry watchers are expecting a step-up in output with 8K gameplay potential coming
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Of course, it’s worth taking all the above with a pinch of salt until Sony announces its revised console. These are only rumours and plans could see last-minute changes.
Pricing for the PS5 Pro remains speculative, with analyst Serkan Toto suggesting a potential cost of around £500 in the UK. This would position it as a premium option above the current PS5 models, which retail at £479 for the disc version and £389 for the digital-only variant.
As for availability, multiple sources point towards a November release, likely targeting the lucrative holiday shopping season. This timeline aligns with Sony’s previous mid-generation console launches.
It’s worth noting that, unlike previous generations, PlayStation hardware costs have actually increased over time. The original PS5 launched at £449 in 2020, with prices slowly increasing in the last four years.
While we’d usually expect the arrival of Pro-level console to justify a price drop for the existing hardware, that doesn’t seem likely this time around. Instead, most analysts now believe the PS5 Pro will command a higher price than the increased PS5 price tag. The advanced features and performance capabilities will be used to justify this increased cost.
Some believe that Sony’s timing of the PS5 Pro announcement is designed to capitalise on interest in Grand Theft Auto VI, which will launch sometime in the new year. GTA 6 is the sequel to the biggest-selling entertainment product of all time — selling over 190 million copies worldwide and generating revenue of $8.5 billion for Edinburgh-based developers Rockstar North and parent company Take-Two Interactive.