The PS5 Pro’s Biggest Problem Is That It Exists

Let me begin candidly: I will buy a PlayStation 5 Pro (at some point), but Sony has made a grave miscalculation in revealing it. That has nothing to do with the price or the diminishing technological returns it represents. It’s that it exists at all.

The divergence between the big three in the console market is well established. Microsoft seems to be pulling back from having a dedicated box under your TV, repositioning Xbox instead as an ecosystem that allows you to play its games everywhere — on your PC, on your phone, on your PlayStation. Nintendo is doing its own thing, with the Switch bridging the gap between portables and consoles (though we’re yet to see the USP of its successor, supposedly being revealed very soon). And Sony is the bastion of the old guard, continuing unbroken the tradition of dedicated hardware characterised by incremental upgrades. The PS5 Pro is just the latest expression of that. 

This refresh is the next step in a trend that started in the previous generation, where both Microsoft and Sony upgraded their consoles in the middle of the cycle, with the Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro respectively. Then, it made sense. The Xbox One and PS4 base consoles were highly competitive in terms of sales, both were vying for a power advantage, and both were starting to struggle with the games that were being released at the time. None of that is true this time around. 

More than just being different, the trajectory of the current console generation has been quite weird. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S launched, of course, at the end of 2020. With the pandemic wreaking havoc on global supply chains, the chips used to power them were in short supply, resulting in a production shortfall that lasted for three years. The pandemic also disrupted game development en masse, causing delays of more than a year in many cases. On top of that, the cross-gen period has blown out, as relatively major games — even this year — like Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Persona 3 Reload, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 are launching day and date across previous and current gen consoles. The result: this generation is still struggling to hit its stride, with very few games that can make the case that a mid-gen refresh is necessary.

Even Sony seemed to recognise that in its Technical Presentation, where cross-gen games like Gran Turismo 7, Hogwarts Legacy, Horizon: Forbidden West, and The Last of Us Part II were used to highlight the upgrades in the new hardware. 

Of course, a part of the reason for demonstrating with those titles is simple necessity. The presentation did include snippets from PS5 exclusives (PC ports notwithstanding) like Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Returnal, and Demon’s Souls, but even amongst Sony’s first party, there are precious few of those to choose from. It made for a muted presentation that has been widely (and justifiably) derided. 

It doesn’t make a strong case for the necessity of the PS5 Pro. And why would it when we don’t have a clear idea of PlayStation as a whole? Astro Bot has just released to wild acclaim, coming off the back of a raft of bad press for the console manufacturer. Concord was delisted, half of the company’s planned live-service slate was cut (which resulted in the closure of independent studio Deviation Games), and London and Japan Studios were shuttered. Looking forward, the Until Dawn remake, Fairgame$, LEGO Horizon Adventures, Marathon, and Marvel’s Wolverine are confirmed. It’s a broad slate, but one that lacks a clear brand identity and doesn’t really have any hardware-melting heavy hitters.

That’s the problem that the PS5 Pro didn’t predict. The games that demand its existence take longer to develop than it did.

When you consider that context, it becomes clear that the PS5 Pro isn’t the result of hubris (as some no doubt would argue) but long-term planning gone disastrously wrong. Of course, there’s immense value in long-term planning, yet doing so effectively requires adjusting to changing circumstances. Take Concord, for example. To us, the players, it was obvious from the moment it was revealed that it existed purely as a result of the sunk cost fallacy. The game survived Sony’s pull back from its live-service push solely because it was so close to release; it was designed in and for a different point in the industry’s cycle. And so its abject failure was entirely predictable.

Concord was the wrong product at the wrong time, and the PS5 Pro shares that trait. The tech industry has shot off in a different direction, pursuing ‘AI’ (more accurately LLMs or machine learning) over traditional Moore’s Law computing. The PS5 Pro accedes to that with its AI-driven graphics upscaling technology. However, at the end of the day, that’s just more graphics, and that doesn’t have the impact it once did in a post-Hi-Fi Rush and Astro Bot world.

Sony wasn’t wrong to pursue the strategy that worked so effectively in the previous generation, but doggedly sticking to it despite the setbacks and seismic changes of the last few years is baffling. The company has massively miscalculated the timing and value of this refresh and, in doing so, raised more questions about its ability to service player wants in the modern age.

With all that being said, I wrote at the beginning that I do intend to get a PS5 Pro eventually. That’s mainly because I’m yet to pick up a PS5 at all. For that to happen, Sony will have to work a lot harder to convince me to take the plunge: more games to take advantage of the hardware, the right price point (AUD$1200 ain’t it), and a restoration of faith in the brand.