As you may know, today (September 10th, 2024), Mark Cerny of Sony Playstation revealed the Pro line for the PS5 family of systems. At only around 10 minutes of video, this was a short but informative video on the enhancements promised by the system.
The big elephant in the room, and the likely talking point no matter how interested (or not) a potential customer may be, is the price point of $699.99. Making this a steep $200 increase from the base model. To cut to the point, whatever negatives I also have with the information provided, there was nothing the PS5 Pro could have done right to justify such a sharp asking price. Considering the wide range of taxes from state to state, this console could easily set you back around $1000, and I doubt taxes in other countries will be too different from this final price. It gets worse when considering that the vertical stand is not included with the Pro, despite how there is a stand included with the base PS5, and how collectors of physical disc games will need to shell out an additional $80 as the required disc tray is also not included.
This screams of corporate greed from a company assuming they can get away with it. Sony’s PlayStation brand earned a lot of goodwill in the past console cycle thanks to the underperformance of both their competitors (The Xbox One and the WiiU), and I fear this mask is starting to crack. A showing of ego, gained by a company deciding the general public now loves them to the point they can do no wrong. I can only imagine, and even assume, that between this and the shutdown of Concord, more than a few PlayStation fans are asking a few questions about their brand loyalty.
But let’s forget speculation, and discuss my other problems with the PS5 Pro. For starters, as profound as it may have sounded from Cerny that developers wish to show how great their games truly look while keeping the framerate the way players want, I feel this also shows a hand. Gamers have started to push back on games going for graphics over writing and/or gameplay, and to openly admit that gamers want FPS over graphics in a professional video from Sony feels like a statement they should have proofread.
I cannot speak for developers, but I honestly doubt the statement is even entirely true. I’m sure developers want their games to be good, absolutely, but graphical fidelity has always been a talking point from publishers and CEOs instead of anything I earnestly heard from a developer. A small issue, true, but a statement that pricked my ears regardless.
As for that fidelity, let’s be frank and say YouTube is the wrong place to do side-by-side comparisons. As an uploader to the platform myself, YouTube’s bitrate compresses image quality so much that true 4K does not exist on the site. Vimeo would have showcased the details far better, but YouTube is the platform more people watch, and I don’t blame Sony for YouTube’s poor render qualities. That said, the side-by-sides looked no different to me.
I have gamed on both a 4K TV and a non-4K TV with my PS5, and I can tell the difference. Even with YouTube’s compression, the only difference I saw was that the Pro version tended to be zoomed in slightly more, which is an odd choice to do for a true side-by-side. As for the framerate discussion, sadly, both videos still looked the same to me. If there is a difference, it’s in the single digits, something I’m sure I would feel but not see.
This type of console is more the more tech-savvy individual, something I somewhat am, as evident by the fact I’m an owner of Sony’s PS VR2, an expensive headset I enjoy so much I have worked it into my exercise regiment. I understand that with high-end tech, feeling can be far more important than seeing
But frankly, even before I knew the price, I was not impressed. These looked like the same old games the PS5 ran very well already. I understood the need for a PS4 pro, as the PS4 was underutilized in terms of slow load times and abysmal download speeds, but I’ve owned a PS5 for a year and have had no issues of the sort. There is no need for the Pro version of the PS5, and at 700 dollars, I only see a flop.