The new Sony PlayStation 5 Pro will be available to pre-order from Thursday, 26th September 2024, before it’s available in-store from Monday, 7th November 2024. The PS5 Pro is priced at AUD$1,199, which is nearly twice the price of the current PS5 Slim Digital (AUD$679). It’s worth noting that the PS5 Pro does not come with a disk drive, so this will also have to be factored into the cost for those who prefer physical copies. This will blow out the price of the new PS5 Pro to AUD$1,360 once the $159 PS5 Disc Drive has been added.
Sony PlayStation 5 Pro Quick Facts:
- Priced at AUD$1,199 and doesn’t have a disc drive
- AUD$1,360 once the $159 PS5 Slim Disc Drive has been added
- Pre-orders from 26th September before the in-store launch on 7th November 2024
- 2TB of storage
- New GPU with 67% more compute units, 28% faster memory, render gameplay 45% faster
- Advanced ray tracing for dynamic reflection and refraction of light
- PlayStation ‘Spectral Super Resolution’ AI-upscaling
- First Sony PlayStation with 8K @ 60fps support
- Enhance and upscale 8,500+ PS4 games using PS5 Pro Game Boost
- Unique ‘PS5 Pro Enhanced’ labels for Pro games, both new and updated
- It is the same height as the original PS5, the same width as the current PS5 Slim
Now that you’ve read the quick facts let’s look at the new PS5 Pro in-depth.
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Is the new PS5 Pro worth it? Well, that depends. It’s the most powerful PlayStation ever and comes with a new GPU with 67% more ‘Compute Units’ than the current PS5 and 28% faster memory. The result is a console that can render gameplay 45% faster, which means a smoother experience for gamers. This new GPU also helps bring advanced ray tracing to the console, which enhances graphics with more dynamic reflection and refraction of light that can happen two or three times faster than the current console.
No tech product release is without a mention of AI, and Sony has added ‘PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution’ to the PlayStation 5 Pro. They say this is “AI-driven upscaling that uses a machine learning-based technology to provide super sharp image clarity by adding an extraordinary amount of detail.” This is important because while this is the first Sony PlayStation with 8K @ 60fps support, there aren’t many 8K games, and hardly anyone has an 8K television.
With the new hardware enhancements, the PlayStation 5 Pro console can also enhance and upscale older PS4 games using PS5 Pro Game Boost, which works with over 8,500 backward-compatible PS4 games. This software feature works with ‘Enhanced Image Quality’ for PS4 games, which can further improve the resolution of select PS4 games. However, with so many games now being remastered for PS5, it seems this feature will have very select use cases.
More importantly, developers need to work with the Sony team to create games that support the capabilities of this new console while not pushing the limits of the older and less powerful PS5 Slim. Thankfully, the brand has already thought of this and the following games will be updated and released with PlayStation 5 Pro enhancements and will carry ‘PS5 Pro Enhanced’ labels:
- Alan Wake 2
- Assassin’s Creed: Shadows
- Demon’s Souls
- Dragon’s Dogma 2
- Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
- Gran Turismo 7
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Horizon Forbidden West
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
- Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
- The Crew Motorfest
- The First Descendant
- The Last of Us Part II Remastered
Ultimately, whether or not the PS5 Pro is worth it often comes down to your added hardware. A quality games console is little use if you’re not maximising its capabilities with a high-quality display, and you’ll want to make the most of this new device with an OLED TV—we recommend the LG OLED evo C4, Samsung S90D, and Sony BRAVIA 8. Better yet, pick up an OLED gaming monitor to enter competitive environments.
The new Sony PlayStation 5 (AUD$1,199) will be available to pre-order from Thursday, September 26th, 2024, before it’s available in-store from Monday, November 7th, 2024. It will work with all PS5 accessories currently available, including PlayStation VR2, PlayStation Portal, DualSense Edge, Access controller, Pulse Elite, and Pulse Explore.
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