Sony could launch the PlayStation 5 Pro next year

[midian182]

Rumor mill: It's pretty much a certainty that Sony will release a PS5 Pro at some point. The company hasn't made any official announcements about the upgraded console or a potential release date, but according to a new report, the machine is in development and has a tentative launch date of late 2024.

The launch date claim comes from Insider Gaming, which cites unnamed sources. It notes that a recently-published patent by PlayStation architect Mark Cerny suggests Sony will put a lot of focus on better ray tracing abilities in the PS5 Pro. The new console will also come with the usual improvements to visual fidelity and general performance expected in a PS Pro model.

The patent was filed by PS5 architect and Knack creator Mark Cerny, and mentions "System And Method For Accelerated Ray Tracing" and "System And Method For Accelerated Ray Tracing With Asynchronous Operation And Ray Transformation."#PS5 #PlayStation5 #PlayStation pic.twitter.com/yyjL8SMfRw

— Gamingnews (@Onion00048) February 25, 2022

While these sorts of reports should be taken with a pinch of salt, it's easy to imagine that Sony would want to launch a PS5 Pro during next year's holiday season. The PlayStation 4 was released on November 13, 2013, with the PS4 Pro arriving on November 16, 2016 – three years later.

The PlayStation 5 launched on November 12, 2020, so we're closing in on the three-year mark for the PS5 Pro. But the PS4 never faced a global pandemic and an unprecedented chip crisis. Up until recently, buying a PS5 was an almost impossible task unless you were willing to pay scalpers or extra money for bundle packs, if available.

In January, Sony said buying a PS5 should be much easier. It also increased supplies of the console in the run-up to the PSVR 2 launch. Skyrocketing sales gave the PS5 its best quarter to date in Q4 2022 and have helped make Sony AMD's biggest customer.

On the other side of the argument, the chip shortage isn't entirely over, and many developers are still releasing games on both PS4 and PS5, limiting how hard they can push the latter's hardware, so Sony might want to wait a bit longer than 2024 to launch a PS5 Pro.

Insider Gaming also believes that a new version of the PS5 with a detachable disc drive (via USB-C) will land this year, phasing out the current PlayStation 5 model. That would mean two new PlayStation models launching within around 12 months of each other, which seems unlikely. As for the PS6, the publication believes that the next-gen machine won't arrive until at least 2028, which does sound more reasonable.

Last May, an AMD job listing for a system-on-chip verification engineer suggested it was already preparing for the PlayStation 6's chip development.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/97937-sony-could-launch-playstation-5-pro-late-next.html

 

[KofeViR]

I hope to see Slim in 2023 and Pro in 2024 or both next year.

Not getting a PS5 before these. The regular version closes in on 3 years now and uses 7nm tech. 3nm will be available for Slim and Pro.

 

[NumberSix]

When I can be bothered to turn mine on I play a lot more PS4 games on it than PS5 games weirdly.

 

[KofeViR]

When I can be bothered to turn mine on I play a lot more PS4 games on it than PS5 games weirdly.

Yeah PS5 really lack (exclusive) games overall. First few years always suck but current gen has been really bad, probably because of chip supply issues.

It seems like Sony kept most focus on PS4 for a long time after PS5 went out.

 

[neeyik]

The patent in question can be read here. The filing date is 13th August 2021, and the publication date is 28th February 2023. A quick read-through suggests the RT structure is more like RNDA 3 than RDNA 2.

 

[CBTex]

I wanted one when they were initially relased but not so much anymore. Would feel like less of a value paying the same price for a system that's 2.5 years old already.

 

[Kirby1]

I think it would be a really bad move to release pro consoles the gen. It made sense last gen because of the transition to 4k.

 

[kira setsu]

I think it would be a really bad move to release pro consoles the gen. It made sense last gen because of the transition to 4k.

nah, sony realized gullible gamers are more than willing to part from their cash if something is slightly better than what they have, works for phones right?

gamers cried when the ps3 launched at 600 as a complete system but seem to gladly pay four or five hundred bucks twice if its a year or so apart. so here we are. why would sony not make a ps5 turbo or whatever since gamers have been mumbling about it since the ps5's release.

watch it sell like hot cakes too, gamers are dumber than a bag of hammers.

 

[Vulcanproject]

I'm in the process of building a new PC and questioning the outlay a bit. I'm still going to build it but my PS5 paired with an OLED TV is providing ample image quality. It feels more difficult to justify plopping down the steep demands for a modern AM5 board and even worse for a new GPU. Ten years ago was easy, you could always have double the resolution of consoles and see it. Double the framerate and feel it.

However the gap appears narrower because of far superior upscaling techniques, much beyond 4K is vastly expensive even now for PC. Gone are the days where you could buy a GPU for the price of a new console and be safe in the knowledge it'll utterly destroy the console when dropped into a well prepared existing PC. Diminishing returns really is a thing when even consoles are pushing out good looking reconstructed 4K with pretty nice anti aliasing, filtering and 60FPS options.

The fact is despite PS5 having no price reduction in over two years a $500 graphics card even now is not really throwing up much more onto the screen. They're still leaning heavily into modern upscaling techniques on that class of GPU for higher resolution. It pains me to say that after over 20 years of arguing how much better PC games can and do look.

PS5 Pro at the end of 2024 might not seem like much sense if you view it in respect to why PS4 Pro existed, leveraging the boom in UHD. For me though if the consoles keep updating performance like this every few years while retaining their compatibility with games then it's only more attractive seeing that as a benefit. It was one of the primary reasons I became a PC gamer.

Nvidia's $700 mid range graphics cards and $250 low end AM5 boards are the reason why I'm less enthusiastic about the future of Pc gaming.

 

[Nobina]

There are about 6-7 games on PlayStation that I want to play, didn't have any interest in consoles before. I'm probably gonna wait for a Pro version unless it also becomes inflated.

 

[NintPlayBox]

More reasons not to get the current gargantuan model.. hopefully this time Sony has designed something that can fit in most people's entertainment centers.

 

[BigCatsByte]

Seams iffy, The PS4 and XBone both aged fast and so a Pro/X version was a great Idea. Both Current Gen systems are still going strong, so a "Lite" version seams more likely and a "Pro" version should be two to three years out. Series S is the waste of time that should be phased out completely.

 

[nulll]

nah, sony realized gullible gamers are more than willing to part from their cash if something is slightly better than what they have, works for phones right?

gamers cried when the ps3 launched at 600 as a complete system but seem to gladly pay four or five hundred bucks twice if its a year or so apart. so here we are. why would sony not make a ps5 turbo or whatever since gamers have been mumbling about it since the ps5's release.

watch it sell like hot cakes too, gamers are dumber than a bag of hammers.

The real adjusted cost of a PS3 in 2016 would have been $700USD factoring inflation between 2006 and 2016 @~17%. The PS4 Pro was by comparison $399USD. Bring that forward another generation and say there is a PS5 pro in 2024, The PS3 would have a normalized cost of ~$870USD in 2024. Also that is low balling the average inflation rates for 2023 and 2024 to a 50 year normal of 3%. For comparison it's 8% for 2022.

Basically you could buy a PS4Pro and a rumored PS5Pro for what a launch 60GB PS3 cost, this is not an argument for their being multiple hardware skus per generation as that's just absurdly wasteful and it incentivizes developers to not bother optimizing their engines or code. Just another example of how preposterous Sony's pricing of the PS3 was in 2006.

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/

 

[kira setsu]

The real adjusted cost of a PS3 in 2016 would have been $700USD factoring inflation between 2006 and 2016 @~17%. The PS4 Pro was by comparison $399USD. Bring that forward another generation and say there is a PS5 pro in 2024, The PS3 would have a normalized cost of ~$870USD in 2024. Also that is low balling the average inflation rates for 2023 and 2024 to a 50 year normal of 3%. For comparison it's 8% for 2022.

Basically you could buy a PS4Pro and a rumored PS5Pro for what a launch 60GB PS3 cost, this is not an argument for their being multiple hardware skus per generation as that's just absurdly wasteful and it incentivizes developers to not bother optimizing their engines or code. Just another example of how preposterous Sony's pricing of the PS3 was in 2006.

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/

thanks for the inflation info, yes the ps3 was expensive.

BUT, for alot of people, myself included, looking at what it was capable of justified its price. it was pretty much 3 gens of playstation in a shiny suit, as gaming was and is my main hobby what the ps3 was imo, was a perfect gaming machine, not including its movie capabilities and other features.

so I'll still stand by what I posted earlier, if it actually succeeded we'd probably have more complete albeit expensive systems on release these days, in the end youre still spending 800 or more if you buy a launch and pro console anyway.

 

[Tams80]

I think it would be a really bad move to release pro consoles the gen. It made sense last gen because of the transition to 4k.

None of the consoles can run native 4k, so there absolutely is plenty of room for improvement. Hell, even top end PCs still struggle with it in more complex games.