PlayStation surprisingly released news stating “PS5, The Journey Continues” in a brief trailer yesterday for a technical presentation. Today, that presentation has gone live and revealed the PlayStation 5 Pro.
The Lead Architect of the PS5 console, Mark Cerny, has taken over the official PlayStation YouTube channel to give fans the first-ever look at the PlayStation 5 Pro. Touting the “Big 3” as the main reason for the upgrade, the PS5 Pro delivers almost twice the GPU output of the base PS5 model. Cerny declares the PS5 Pro as “the most powerful console we have ever built.” The whole presentation can be seen below, narrated by Mark Cerny.
The Big 3 mentioned by Cerny refers to the larger GPU PlayStation 5 Pro has over its predecessors (the PS5 and PS5 Slim), the focus on advanced ray tracing to get the clearest image possible, and AI-driven upscaling to further enhance pixelated graphics. The Big 3 combined allows the new PS5 Pro to run at a much better rate than the previous models, with the GPU running with a 45% faster processing rate, and with what PlayStation is calling PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), a method machine-based learning uses to analyze images pixel by pixel to give titles the smoothest resolution possible.
All of the mentioned upgrades have made former PS5 titles that already looked good appear even better. Cerny says the PlayStation 5 Pro is two to three times faster at rendering ray-traced images than the PS5. As a result, the PS5 Pro can render recent titles like The Last of Us Part II at a crisp 60 fps. Cerny also noted that other PS5 games will receive “Pro” upgrades, specifically mentioning Gran Turismo 7, Horizon Forbidden West, and Ratchet and Clank: A Rift Apart as titles that will benefit from the 60 fps boost.
What’s curious is the complete lack of a visual representation of a physical disk drive. The PS5 Pro appears to be missing a disk drive. When looking at the PlayStation Blog post describing what was just announced in the presentation they’ve confirmed the PlayStation 5 Pro “PS5 Pro is available as a disc-less console, with the option to purchase the currently available Disc Drive for PS5 separately.” It’s worth noting that the PS5 Pro will also release the vertical stand as a separate purchase and the disk drive as separate add-ons.
The PS5 Pro will be available starting November 7, and it will be available for $699.99.
