PS5 Pro needs a reason to exist that isn’t just GTA 6

Leaks indicate PlayStation 5 will get a mid-generation upgrade this year, but it’ll be a tough sell for Sony

There is mounting evidence that Sony is preparing to release a more powerful PlayStation 5 model, and sooner than you might think. Analysts have confidently predicted the new machine will launch at the end of 2024, while a series of leaks detailing its specs — sourced from official Sony documentation distributed to developers — gives us an idea of how big an upgrade it will be. The strategy seems very similar to that followed by both Sony and Microsoft one console generation ago with the release of PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X: deluxe versions of their console platforms with upgraded specs, released in the middle of the console generation.

There is a crucial difference, however, between then and now. When those two mid-generation consoles launched in 2016 and 2017, respectively, TV manufacturers were pushing 4K (or “Ultra HD”) displays hard — and people were buying them. There was an obvious need for consoles that were capable of outputting images at 4K resolutions, which neither the base PS4 nor Xbox One could do. This meant Sony and Microsoft had a clear marketing peg to hang their new machines on.

Eight years later, it’s harder to find similar external factors compelling PS5 Pro to exist. While higher-resolution 8K screens are already out there, there isn’t much 8K content available, and even at huge screen sizes, it’s tough to tell the difference from 4K; consumer take-up has been slow. Sony has reportedly told developers that it’s working to add 8K support to PS5 Pro, but it’s not guaranteed.

There is one other thing on the horizon that might help Sony sell PS5 Pro, an even rarer event than a new generation of TV technology: a new Grand Theft Auto game. It’s telling that the analysts who predicted PS5 Pro’s 2024 launch to CNBC framed it as preparation for GTA 6’s release in 2025. With Microsoft apparently skipping a mid-generation console upgrade this time (a potential new model of Xbox Series X has leaked, but it’s not more powerful than the current Series X), Sony will easily be able to position PS5 Pro as the best way to experience what could easily be the biggest game of the decade.

But it will still need to point to some qualitative differences that will make the upgrade worthwhile. What will PS5 Pro actually do?

If you want to fully understand the potential makeup of the new console, I recommend reading or watching Digital Foundry’s detailed analysis. DF’s Richard Leadbetter independently verified the specs and reviewed the developer documentation, and as always, his analysis is incredibly thorough and grounded in a deep understanding of the current tech landscape. I’ll attempt to break down what it all means in layman’s terms, but this task isn’t that easy, which just underlines how difficult a job Sony will have in building a sales pitch for PS5 Pro.

Broadly, Sony says the machine will enable three things: faster frame rates, higher display resolutions (potentially up to 8K), and improved ray tracing (which means more realistic-looking lighting and reflections). To achieve these goals, the PS5 Pro will get a slight boost in CPU power, a bigger boost for the GPU, a bit more memory, a custom chip for ray tracing, and a bespoke, AI-powered resolution upscaler that Sony has dramatically named PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR).

In terms of ray tracing, the new setup is said to be two to four times faster than the base PS5. What this means in practical terms is that PS5 games that don’t have ray tracing might be able to add it, and games with limited ray-tracing features might be able to improve them — say, by adding ray-traced shadows or reflections. This is undeniably nice to have, but perhaps not a system-selling feature.

Better frame rates — meaning smoother, more responsive action — will be a bigger deal for many gamers, but Leadbetter warns that we need to set expectations here. With many games, the frame rate can’t just be improved by throwing more graphics processing power at the problem. You need a faster CPU as well that’s capable of keeping up with all the calculations the game is trying to make. And the CPU gains appear very modest, with a maximum 10% speed increase. It’s not likely that PS5 Pro will be able to run 30 fps games at 60 fps. It’s more reasonable to expect that some games will run more smoothly and consistently at whatever their targeted frame rate is — which is not the result many will be hoping for.

Display resolution is likely where the PS5 Pro will win big. The combination of its extra GPU power (a 67% increase in theory, but more like 45% in practice, according to Sony’s notes to developers) and the PSSR machine learning upscaler should lead to a dramatic improvement in image quality. Early signs are that AI upscalers produce far better results than previous upscaling technologies, and are a tremendously powerful way of making up for the great expense and difficulty of manufacturing more powerful chips at the moment.

AI upscalers aren’t just useful for high-end gaming, either; there are early reports Nintendo will use Nvidia’s DLSS upscaler in Switch 2 to help a modestly powered handheld console punch far above its weight class. Assuming Sony’s PSSR is similar to DLSS, it’ll unlock potential 8K support for PS5 Pro (though Sony is reportedly still working on this). More meaningfully for most players, though, it will deliver crisper, better-rendered images at 4K resolution.

However, in order to sell the PS5 Pro on its display prowess alone, Sony will need to admit that the PS5 itself isn’t really up to the task. Digital Foundry says that now the era of cross-generational games is mostly behind us, many third-party PS5 (and Xbox Series X) games are struggling. Low internal resolutions combined with aging upscaling techniques are resulting in muddy image quality, and this generation of consoles is getting left behind surprisingly quickly by gaming PCs.

The short version of all this is that PS5 Pro does what PS5 was always supposed to do: let you run games with ray tracing at 4K. That doesn’t make for a terribly convincing sales pitch. Proposing what’ll likely be a $600 machine as a cheaper alternative to high-end PC gaming might work better, although PS5 Pro’s CPU handicap will hurt it here, without the big frame-rate gains to show for it.

The most meaningful improvement offered by PS5 Pro will be in image quality, meaning the sharpness of the image, how well it resolves detail, and how fully it uses the resolution of the display it’s hooked up to. That’s not quite the same thing as “better graphics,” at least not in the way most people understand it. It’s questionable how many players are aware of the poor image quality of the base PS5 and Xbox Series X, and indeed how many players are aware the consoles that were sold from day one on 4K capability are struggling to match that resolution. It’s even more questionable how many would care, even if they were fully aware of the issue. And for gamers for whom only the best would do, PC gaming will remain the only way to get there — especially if frame rate is a primary concern.

All of this leaves PS5 Pro as a marketing plan searching for a reason to exist. There’s no doubt GTA 6 will be a shot in the arm for the game industry, and the PS5 Pro will give Sony — which remains a company that just loves to put gadgets in boxes and ship them — a shiny new product to sell alongside it. But the question of who will be buying those boxes is tough to answer. In the current economic climate, $600 for a console that’s a bit better in ways that are difficult to quantify seems very steep. And the venn diagram of players who care enough to shell out for incremental gains but not enough to invest in PC gaming instead seems extremely slim. One thing’s for sure: Sony’s marketing team will have their work cut out for them this holiday season.