PlayStation 5 Pro Review Thread
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Thread: PlayStation 5 Pro Review Thread
esoteric
Member
I picked up a Pro a couple days ago, so I'm looking forward to getting back into gaming again. My plan is to rotate new games and old games to appreciate the difference in graphics and performance between generations. First on the list: Demon's Souls and Dishonored 2.
PS5Pro is already 12% behind the PS4Pro in units sold, with no information on whether those sales are making more money or just more expensive with potentially an even smaller profit margin.19% of PlayStation console sales were Pro consoles, making up 24% of the revenue. Significant impact and obviously sold more than the Xbox consoles. Question is, if it'll remain that strong or if the enthusiasts bought it and now it'll have weak sales going forward.
Alongside the PS5 having dropped below the PS4 sales launch aligned more generally, things are going pretty much exactly as I predicted, which is always gratifying.
Similarly, yeah, Xbox is dead. There's no saving it at this point.
DonDonDonPata
Bridge Burn Man
The console version of Dishonored 2 is still capped at 30fps last time I checked on base-model PS5.
19% of PlayStation console sales were Pro consoles, making up 24% of the revenue. Significant impact and obviously sold more than the Xbox consoles. Question is, if it'll remain that strong or if the enthusiasts bought it and now it'll have weak sales going forward.
Yeah I doubt the rate will stay that high, but 19% is fucking crazy. It's a $700 ($840 after tax with disc drive) refresh console. I doubt anyone expects it to beat the PS4 Pro's 10% rate over time, but that's a huge opening for it.
esoteric
Member
Yeah I'm with family for the holidays so I'm playing it now on a crappy TV before I go back to where I live and play Demon's Souls on a much better TV. I figure this is the best time to cross an old game off the list lol.
To temper that, base PS5 sales will be down (PS5 overall revenue was only up 15% while the much more expensive PS5Pro accounted for 28% of that.) and still sold significantly fewer units than the PS4Pro at launch.
Sure, there's likely a significant majority of early adopters and 'premium' customers that don't care about the price, but we also have to bear in mind the Xbox players from last gen that have jumped ship, who would have bought the XOX instead of the PS4Pro, who will only have the option of the PS5Pro to buy this gen.
I think unless the PS5Pro gets a significant price cut next year, it's going to end up underperforming Playstation's expectations for it.
There are so many arguments for declining sales, as well as for good sales. Very dynamic environment.
Some pro Pro success arguments:
- until the PS6 launched, there'll be 2 new GPU generations on PC. They will likely raise the fidelity and performance expectations. Devs will keep pushing the tech
- PS5 Amateur games will look and run worse and worse compared to PC
- the Pro will bridge that gap to a satisfactory degree
- GTA VI will launch and it'll be very demanding. Pro version will easily be the best one and people are crazy hyped, it'll boost Pro sales
In the end, I think it'll be somewhere in the middle. It'll sell less than the PS4 Pro, but generate comparable or even slightly higher revenue because of the higher price. At least that's my guess.
The_Mike
Member
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I just find it quite comical that console users are saying pc gaming is too expensive, while paying 700 bucks for a minor upgrade.
Even buying a Nvidia GPU between generations will be a way more noticeable performance change, which is more or less equivalent to upgrade from base PS5 to the pro.
Even buying a Nvidia GPU between generations will be a way more noticeable performance change, which is more or less equivalent to upgrade from base PS5 to the pro.
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I read the tea and just decided to jump ship to PC, SteamDeck, and Switch. It's clear Sony isn't averse to selling $500-$800 hardware, which I think is going to blow up in their face. I have no intention of being tied into the PlayStation ecosystem when that happens. PC makes the most sense to replace the PlayStation, and I'll still get the consistent high value console experience from Switch 2.
It really was an easy decision since Sony has literally been making the case for it.
Wait, how is going from 30fps to 60fps with very comparable visuals, a minor upgrade? Basically doubling the frame rate in most cases is a huge upgrade.
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Most people expect better visuals and frame rates when they pay 1.5 times the cost of the other offering. If Sony wants to sell the Pro on frame rates they should've just called it PS5 60FPS Edition. Visually, the games don't look much different, that's why DF has to keep posting videos to show people "and if you look real hard here this glass has a reflection on it" and "you can see the armor in Wukong is slightly more detailed." That's why Sony trotted out Cerny a week before Christmas to explain everything by doing a "deep dive."
It's supremely disingenuous of Sony to release an $800 machine that finally does only what the PS5 was promised to do and then try to act like they just fucking discovered fire. It may sound like I'm shitting on them, and I suppose I am, but they deserve it. And I also know how this company gets without competition; you can see it happening already — the PS5 Pro is a manifestation of Arrogant Sony.
Practically doubling the performance is exceptional tbh. Look at any other hardware, be it GPUs, CPUs, RAM, anything, and see what's necessary to get double the performance, and how much it costs. You have totally unreasonable expectations.
PS5 does offer 60fps modes in the vast majority of games. But for that price, of course there are concessions to make. Pro offers significantly better image quality at 60fps. What's disingenuous about that?
I'm actually pleasantly surprised that the cheap ass budget hardware in the PS5 delivers the performance it does. Seriously, especially in Sony first party games, it's exceptional for the price. And there even being 60fps modes across most games, I didn't expect that. PS5 Amateur is a great machine. What devs do or don't do with it, as well as with the Pro, that's a different story and we know that many are incompetent, and that no hardware in the world can fix that.
The_Mike
Member
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Because 60 fps has been the new meme framerate.
PS4 had the 30 fps is fine meme. PS5 has the 60 fps is fine meme.
Meanwhile upgrades of the same price point on PC can give you from 60 to 160+ framerate for around the same price as consolse users pay from 30 to 60 fps.
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I wish them the best of luck trying to sell that.
I'm also feeling that the Pro is always going to be constrained by the OG PS5. The Pro will always be an afterthought, partly because it'll have this tiny sliver of a market that doesn't really justify the extra effort when game companies are already losing their asses and mostly because Sony knows that releasing a shitty version of a game on the PS5 is going to piss of their bread and butter base. It's basically the Series S/ Series X dilemma all over again. In other words: if you are Sony, who are you going to take care of: 50 million people? Or 1 million?
I mean, they successfully anally fisted Microsoft this gen, wiped the floor with their main competitor to the point of Xbox being forced to release their exclusives on PlayStation. That's the ultimate humiliation. They're running a successful business and are doing very well overall. It's not all that bad for Sony tbh.
That said, there are reasons that this is the first gen for me without owning a PlayStation console. The whole market shifted so much and changed. I'd rather spend a bit more money and be "free", not locked into their ecosystem while having more options.... And still play most of their games lol
There's nothing unique anymore about consoles, no magic. It's just cheaper PCs at this point because it's all the same. Xbox is everything, 95% of the games are multiplatform, I play the same "exclusive" games as the Ponies after a year, Xbox "exclusives" day one, I use the fucking special 30th Anniversary Limited Edition Dualsense Edge on my PC with all the features which is kinda a slap in the face for the brand and even for my nostalgia brain.
It's the natural progression of market consolidation, and it's killing the appeal of these classic consoles.
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I don't think Sony beat Microsoft as much as Microsoft beat themselves. Given the hardware they offered and the studios they own? They should've killed Sony this generation. The same thing killed Xbox that always kills Xbox: bad management.
But yeah, on the rest, I totally agree: why buy a console from Sony or Microsoft when the PC offers a freer environment with more options? They've literally made the case for not buying their platforms for guys like me. Luckily Nintendo is still around to carry the console market or it would be essentially dying right now.
I don't think Playstation had anything to do with Xbox's decline. That was a purely self inflicted mortal wound that was first delivered with the Kinect in the latter half of the 360's lifetime, then instead of seeking medical attention, they kept stabbing themselves in the hope it would suddenly start working if they kept trying.
Playstation meanwhile saw that and picked up their own knife to copy them, because surely Microsoft must know what they're doing, so they're seeing failing sales now too.
Also the vast majority of console gamers don't give a toss about high end graphics and 60fps. They want a cheap, 'good enough' machine that plays the big AAA mainstays like FIFA and COD, a few good exclusives to make the system appear more worthwhile over other options like a tablet or cheap laptop, and now also has all the F2P games that run on a toaster like Fortnite.
Nintendo is the only one catering to the actual Console gamer market, and they're seeing far and away the most success with it. They just have to not fuck up the Switch 2 design and make sure they have some compelling exclusives you can only play on their current gen system, and they're basically guaranteed to eclipse the PS5's lifetime sales, and eat the PS6's lunch until they hit market saturation again and need a Switch 3.
Playstation meanwhile saw that and picked up their own knife to copy them, because surely Microsoft must know what they're doing, so they're seeing failing sales now too.
Also the vast majority of console gamers don't give a toss about high end graphics and 60fps. They want a cheap, 'good enough' machine that plays the big AAA mainstays like FIFA and COD, a few good exclusives to make the system appear more worthwhile over other options like a tablet or cheap laptop, and now also has all the F2P games that run on a toaster like Fortnite.
Nintendo is the only one catering to the actual Console gamer market, and they're seeing far and away the most success with it. They just have to not fuck up the Switch 2 design and make sure they have some compelling exclusives you can only play on their current gen system, and they're basically guaranteed to eclipse the PS5's lifetime sales, and eat the PS6's lunch until they hit market saturation again and need a Switch 3.
Sure, MS made mistakes. But Sony kinda forced them to take risks. Sony remaining steady with good hardware and a somewhat attractive first party output (TLOU, God of War etc.) over the various console generations prevented Xbox from winning, despite having good offerings hardware and software wise. So they needed to be bold and were forced to disrupt the market.
Which, to be fair, is a very difficult task in any business. Going for a market disruption is risky. Xbox tried many different approaches but Sony always countered well, waiting, using the good ideas themselves while letting Xbox getting hurt by the bad ones. Sony played it smart(er) and used their advantage well.
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Microsoft was at its best when it fought Sony on conventional grounds. In fact, Microsoft won (handily) the first two thirds of the 360/PS3 generation. If they'd continued on with that strategy I fully believe you'd see a completely different market now. Instead they decided they wanted to chase the Wii market (as foolish a move as there ever was) and then try to go all draconian on everyone. They've never really recovered from Mattrick, and Spencer has been just as bad only in different ways. This generation Microsoft needed games, they just never brought any out and that killed them.
Sony also needs games, but they're trying to hide it by constantly releasing old stuff with a new coat of paint. That will only last so long. And wasting resources on handhelds, and portals, and pros isn't going to help them with that fundamental task of making consistent new content. I don't have high hopes for them right now; they're all over the place strategically and they feel fat and bloated, like an unchallenged aging boxer who is one fight away from getting knocked the fuck out.
Some interesting bits and pieces from the deep dive with Mark Cerny.
It seems that Sony and AMD are entering into a much deeper collaboration called "Amethyst" for both hardware and software.
On the hardware side Sony has always had a big say when it comes to direction of Radeon roadmap features etc... so it seems this will be a deeper integration of that with them likely having a bigger say, which also makes sense given the next Xbox might be the last one if it even exists at all.
On the software side it seems like it mostly related to using the same training models for AI between Sony and AMD. Meaning both will be able to share the load when it comes to making a training model/data and then each of them can implement technology on top of that separately such as PSSR and FSR4 etc...
It also looks like Sony are going all in on AI stuff, talking about an improved version of PSSR when they have better hardware in the future especially with more on chip memory (presumably they will probably add something like Infinity cache to PS6) as well as things like frame gen, extrapolation and other avenues.
So these are likely some hints at where PS6 will go in terms of both hardware and software features.
PS6 will likely use AMD's new unified GPU architecture between the datacenter and gaming lines (similar to what Nvidia and Intel already do) so what would have been RDNA5 is actually going to be UDNA, a significant implication from this is that AMD has had matrix hardware (tensor cores) in datacenter GPUs for some time now so by combining these architectures together it likely means UDNA onwards will have real "tensor cores".
Right now the custom stuff Sony is doing and likely whatever Radeon does with RDNA4 regarding AI is just a stopgap until this happens in UDNA, with rumours and whatnot pointing to UDNA being the graphics architecture that will likely be used in PS6 (obviously Sony will pick and choose features as they always do).
PS5 Pro also gives us a preview of some of the changes Radeon have made with their RT hardware, he confirmed they are going from 4 box intersections and 1 Triangle intersection per RT "core" to 8 box and 2 Tri, so essentially doubling their intersection capabilities and also switching to using a larger BVH structure in BVH8.
No idea if RDNA4 will have more features in hardware or not for RT, as we know that Sony mixes and matches things they want vs transistor budget but at the very least it seems that the RT hardware will be more performant.
It seems that Sony and AMD are entering into a much deeper collaboration called "Amethyst" for both hardware and software.
On the hardware side Sony has always had a big say when it comes to direction of Radeon roadmap features etc... so it seems this will be a deeper integration of that with them likely having a bigger say, which also makes sense given the next Xbox might be the last one if it even exists at all.
On the software side it seems like it mostly related to using the same training models for AI between Sony and AMD. Meaning both will be able to share the load when it comes to making a training model/data and then each of them can implement technology on top of that separately such as PSSR and FSR4 etc...
It also looks like Sony are going all in on AI stuff, talking about an improved version of PSSR when they have better hardware in the future especially with more on chip memory (presumably they will probably add something like Infinity cache to PS6) as well as things like frame gen, extrapolation and other avenues.
So these are likely some hints at where PS6 will go in terms of both hardware and software features.
PS6 will likely use AMD's new unified GPU architecture between the datacenter and gaming lines (similar to what Nvidia and Intel already do) so what would have been RDNA5 is actually going to be UDNA, a significant implication from this is that AMD has had matrix hardware (tensor cores) in datacenter GPUs for some time now so by combining these architectures together it likely means UDNA onwards will have real "tensor cores".
Right now the custom stuff Sony is doing and likely whatever Radeon does with RDNA4 regarding AI is just a stopgap until this happens in UDNA, with rumours and whatnot pointing to UDNA being the graphics architecture that will likely be used in PS6 (obviously Sony will pick and choose features as they always do).
PS5 Pro also gives us a preview of some of the changes Radeon have made with their RT hardware, he confirmed they are going from 4 box intersections and 1 Triangle intersection per RT "core" to 8 box and 2 Tri, so essentially doubling their intersection capabilities and also switching to using a larger BVH structure in BVH8.
No idea if RDNA4 will have more features in hardware or not for RT, as we know that Sony mixes and matches things they want vs transistor budget but at the very least it seems that the RT hardware will be more performant.
Another factor that played a role:
Xbox was only competitive in the US and only for a limited time span. Outside of the US, it was still Sony land, basically. MS tried to fight Sony on the exclusives front, which is very difficult and very expensive. We saw these games becoming more and more expensive to make, higher and higher risk, with longer development cycles.
Xbox started to struggle to keep up, with the quality and popularity of their core franchises declining, announced games not releasing or releasing many many years later. They realized that they won't win the classic exclusive games battle and that it started to hurt them. Which forced them to explore alternative approaches.
Thanks for the write up! It really seems like Sony is taking a lot of things into their own hands, more than in the past. Which will likely benefit AMD. Sony will push them towards fulfilling their needs, which align well with the gaming market in general. Like with PSSR, they share the code with AMD so AMD will likely introduce their own version of it, improving it over time together with Sony.
That said, it seems like Nvidia is going pretty wild with all the AI shit and is some leagues ahead. I expect them to do some wild shit with that until the PS6 releases, and the design of the PS6 will likely be locked down towards the end of next year.
Phunkydiabetic
Prince of the Land of Stench
Let's be real, if Xbox had released something like this Mike would be all
Cause yeah you're right, doubling performance is a big feat, let alone doubling performance with additional rt features etc.
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While the PS5 Pro looks great, PS5 standard is still one of the best consoles I've ever had (Due to reverse compatibility with PS4 and near instant load times.)
Over next year I'll see if Sony pulls a Nintendo and reveals the PS6 or if Pro gets a decent sale. I'll also be looking for what Switch successor offers, ditto PC market. Hopefully economy will have greatly improved.
Over next year I'll see if Sony pulls a Nintendo and reveals the PS6 or if Pro gets a decent sale. I'll also be looking for what Switch successor offers, ditto PC market. Hopefully economy will have greatly improved.
Yeah I'm hoping the partnership helps them share the load and leverage each other to get a better outcome than if each went it alone when it comes to training data and whatnot, plus Sony helping to push AMD in the right direction hopefully.
Yeah I think Nvidia is going to do something crazy with DLSS4 and other AI features at CES, I'm looking forward to it, hopefully AMD/Sony have already started on "the next step" so that they are not constant behind Nvidia by a year or two in features.
We will see what FSR4 looks like, we know they are using AI heavily but maybe they are also adding something new rather than just a good upscale finally.
rofif
No Russian
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Feels way shorter because it was a very slow start. Still feels like it's barely beginning
Huge improvement in image quality on the
Pro, 60fps mode comparisons.
Pro, 60fps mode comparisons.
Gold Loot
Member
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You're comparing like for like prices when most people are selling or trading up their current hardware. Most are only paying a few hundred dollars for the difference.
The_Mike
Member
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When you cater in that you trade old hardware then it's even more expensive since you have to add the old value as well.
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$499+tax plus $699+tax and you get, what, $300 trade? Yeah fuck that too. And you can't even use it as a 4k player either. It's a rip.
Wait, I have to take it all back. PlayStation is doomed.
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Wait, I have to take it all back. PlayStation is doomed.
There are still Xbox apologists lolz?
The_Mike
Member
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Wait, I have to take it all back. PlayStation is doomed.
Isn't medium kinda a blog site where you just write news?
Everyone can post them afaik, which is clearly shown by the bias and cope in that headline.
Phunkydiabetic
Prince of the Land of Stench
Huge improvement in image quality on the
Pro, 60fps mode comparisons.
Those are some dramatic upgrades
Gold Loot
Member
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Ahh I see. So you don't do that when you upgrade motherboards, RAM, CPU's and GPU's. Gotcha.
Microsoft successfully anally fisted themselves by not releasing any games. Sony did nothing more than stand-by and watch and release PS5 patches for old games while Microsoft self immolated.
The_Mike
Member
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Of course you do.
But in the timespan between PS5 and PS5 pro this hasn't been needed yet.
If you already had decent hardware the price is equivalent to both PS5 and pro, and it's a way better product performance wise.
Saying pc gaming is more expensive is just arrogance and misinformation. Which is what I am trying to point out.