During Ghost of Yotei’s opening hour, the protagonist, Atsu, rides her horse to the edge of a cliff and peers through a telescope across a lush ocean of green trees and yellow grass. It’s easy to lose yourself in the beauty of the scene: Mount Yotei looms in the distance, and individual blades of grass bend as the wind pushes petals into the air around your galloping steed. And it’s rendered without a dropped frame in sight.
That’s a fine example of what the PlayStation 5 Pro can do. Released last year on November 7, the PS5 Pro is the most powerful console on the market. It offers improved performance over the base PlayStation 5 and a new AI upscaling solution called PSSR, which strikes a balance between fidelity and frame rates.
Yet, after using it for a year, I can’t say the PS5 Pro was worth its hefty $749.99 price. Why? Despite the extra power, it simply doesn’t improve a lot of games. In fact, it sometimes makes them worse. So, if you’re considering buying a PS5 Pro, either as your first PS5 or as an upgrade from the original system, here’s why you should save your money until more titles appear that take advantage of its power.
More Power, Same Generation: What the PS5 Pro Actually Changes
Years ago, a console generation was much shorter, lasting about four to six years before a new system emerged. However, as technology leaps became more incremental, the standard console lifecycle grew exponentially. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One continue to receive new releases today, despite being more than 10 years old, and the Nintendo Switch shows no signs of slowing down despite the successful launch of the Switch 2. Sony isn’t immune to this, having introduced the PlayStation 4 Pro a few years after the PlayStation 4’s release.
Following the above trend, the PlayStation 5 Pro improves on the base PlayStation 5 with a faster GPU, a larger SSD, and a smaller, redesigned chassis. However, the most significant addition is PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), Sony’s proprietary AI upscaling solution. Like AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) and Nvidia Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), PSSR renders a game at a lower resolution and upscales the image to a higher resolution for improved performance. In that way, you can reach 4K resolutions without sacrificing a 60fps target.
That all sounds good on paper, but the PS5 Pro often falls short of expectations.
Marvel Rival looks a bit better on the PS5 Pro than on the regular PS5 (Credit: NetEase Games)
A Mixed Bag: When PS5 Pro Enhancements Shine—and When They Don’t
At first glance, with more than 100 supported titles, the PS5 Pro boasts a decent library of enhanced games that strike a balance between high resolutions and smooth gameplay. For instance, Silent Hill f combines the Quality and Performance modes into Pro Mode, providing the best performance at a full 60fps (the base PS5’s Quality mode locks the frame rate to 30fps). Likewise, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on the PS5 Pro is an enhanced experience, as it maintains 60fps while eliminating the fuzzy images seen in the base PS5’s Performance mode.
What about ray tracing? In a tech breakdown of Ghost of Yotei posted by PlayStation Blog, the developers at Sucker Punch used the PS5 Pro’s more efficient ray tracing hardware to enable eyectaching, ray-traced global illumination (RTGI) at 60 frames per second on Pro consoles.
This is where the PS5 Pro shines. It’s the system for the freaks and geeks who love discussing pixel counts and frame rates. But will the average person notice the differences between the PS5 and the PS5 Pro? It’s unlikely. Photorealistic 2K and 4K graphics make for a generally subtle change. It would require side-by-side comparisons for Joe and Jane Gamer to appreciate the PS5 Pro’s graphics enhancements.
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Ghost of Yotei is one of the best looking games on the PlayStation 5 Pro (Credit: Sony/PCMag)
For example, I play a lot of Marvel Rivals on my PS5 Pro, which taps Unreal Engine 5’s advanced lighting techniques. However, Marvel Rivals has a strong art style that looks great on both consoles. Plus, the PS5 Pro doesn’t boost performance, as both PlayStation models have a 120Hz mode. Yes, the hero-shooter looks sharper than when played on a base PS5, but that doesn’t really matter much to me. I imagine many people are in the same boat. And that isn’t the only problem.
There are also instances where PlayStation 5 games running on the Pro aren’t properly optimized, such as with Silent Hill 2 and Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. It results in worse visual and gameplay performance than when they’re played on the vanilla system. Issues like these are typically patched, but it remains concerning that a $750 enthusiast console doesn’t perform at enthusiast levels from the jump.
For many games, you may need to search for a blog post, Digital Foundry video, or Reddit thread to discover what’s new. For a console featuring such cutting-edge technology, the differences should be more readily apparent.
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I’m also somewhat wary about Sony’s support of the PS5 Pro. Although the PlayStation Portal has seen significant improvements (including the recent addition of cloud streaming), Sony appears to have outright abandoned the PlayStation VR2 virtual reality headset. Although I don’t think the PS5 Pro will be left behind, I don’t expect a large portion of the PS5 library (or the backward-compatible PS4 library) to receive Pro enhancements outside of first-party releases and other high-profile, system-moving games, such as Marvel’s Wolverine and Grand Theft Auto VI. If you mainly play indie or AA releases, Pro enhancements may be a ways away.
The Hidden Price of Peak Performance
Without a doubt, the PS5 Pro is the most powerful console on store shelves. However, with its relatively small number of officially supported titles compared with the thousands available overall, it’s for people who mainly play tentpole releases and other popular games. And without a solid gaming monitor featuring Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) support, you won’t get the most out of the system. Your average 4K gaming monitor could easily cost $500, so consider that a potential expense for a PS5 Pro as well.
And if you want to play disc-based games (the PS5 Pro lacks a disc drive), that’s another $79.99 to add to the total cost of owning a PS5 Pro. The regular PS5 will suffice in many cases, and it comes at a much more approachable price ($499 for the all-digital model, $549 for the system with a disc drive).
Should You Upgrade Now—or Hold Out for the PS6?
If you’ve been holding out on a PlayStation, and you’ve got money to burn, the PS5 Pro may be a good purchase, depending on the games you play. The PlayStation 6 probably won’t arrive until 2027 or 2028 at the earliest, and if the PS5 follows the same trajectory as the PS4, you’ll be able to play your PS5 Pro well into the next decade. Plus, as PSSR improves, it’ll hopefully help the system punch above its weight class.
Will Marvel’s Wolverine leverage the PS5 Pro’s power? (Credit: Sony)
However, if you already have a vanilla PS5, it’s hard to recommend the PS5 Pro. PS5 games typically look great and play well on base hardware, so there’s no reason to upgrade unless you’re all-in on the few games that will deliver higher frame rates. There may come a point when the PS5 Pro becomes the standard option for PlayStation fans, but it currently feels more like a future-proofing investment than something you must buy.
About Our Expert
Zackery Cuevas
Writer, Hardware
Experience
I’m a PCMag reviewer and ISF-certified TV calibrator focused on computer accessories, laptops, gaming monitors, and video games. I’ve been writing, playing, and complaining about games for as long as I remember, but it wasn’t until recently that I’ve been able to shout my opinions directly at a larger audience. My work has appeared on iMore, Windows Central, Android Central, and TWICE, and I have a diverse portfolio of editing work under my belt from my time spent at Scholastic and Oxford University Press. I also have a few book-author credits under my belt—I’ve contributed to the sci-fi anthology Under New Suns, and I’ve even written a Peppa Pig book.
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