At a PlayStation 5 Pro media event at Sony’s San Mateo, California, headquarters on Thursday, the company showcased 11 games running on the new hardware. As I walked around the room, a simple thought kept running through my head: I want the new system, but I don’t need it.
In many ways, the structure of the event tells you what you need to know about the hardware itself. Most games were shown on two screens — the PS5 version below and the PS5 Pro version above — with reps for each game standing nearby and pointing out differences you might not notice on your own, which often meant stopping gameplay and positioning the camera at specific angles to call out things in the background. It can be hard to tell certain differences without this level of assistance, which led to some fun moments where the reps tried to mimic how I was playing (often badly) to keep parity between the two screens.
The visual upgrades in games like Spider-Man 2 and Gran Turismo 7 looked fairly subtle, appearing as things like clearer icons and added reflections, while other games, like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Dragon’s Dogma 2, looked sharper and ran smoother overall. While I don’t consider Rebirth anywhere close to a bad-looking game on PS5, that version looked quite blurry or choppy (depending on the graphics mode you chose) relative to the PS5 Pro version when put alongside it, and in Dragon’s Dogma 2 the frame rate was much more consistent on PS5 Pro.
In The Crew Motorfest, shadows appeared crisper and the sun shined brighter, which was particularly noticeable on a beach off to the side of a race. In Horizon Forbidden West, holograms looked smoother and a sign in the distance was much easier to read. These are all nice upgrades that make the games look clearer, cleaner, and more vibrant.
When it announced the PS5 Pro, Sony’s messaging focused on the new console eliminating PS5 players’ need to choose between modes with different benefits, like running a game with more detail in 4K or with less detail at 60 frames per second. That messaging seems spot on, for the most part: The PS5 Pro’s biggest leaps seem to come when you run games at 60 fps that you previously ran at 30 fps. That has a lot to do with how you choose to run games on PS5, though — if you play most games in performance mode there, you won’t see the same leaps here.
There are a number of big-picture questions about the PS5 Pro, like whether a mid-generation hardware upgrade is as necessary now as it was in 2016, when Sony released the PlayStation 4 Pro. In the eight years since then, games have made less significant leaps in graphical fidelity, high-end games have gotten more expensive to develop, and many of the most successful games haven’t pushed hardware limits. So it’s hard not to question the value of reaching for ever-more-detailed visuals in light of extensive recent game industry layoffs.
Add that to a $699.99 price tag, and the PS5 Pro feels like a luxury item rather than something I need as a longtime PlayStation fan — something that’d be great to have to show off a new TV and run the best possible versions of certain games, but not something I can’t live without. At least not until something like Grand Theft Auto 6 or Wolverine comes along and makes a stronger case for it.
As I drove home from Sony’s event, noticing billboards advertising the iPhone 16 Pro on the side of the freeway, I realized that my main issue with the PS5 Pro is the same one I have with how Apple releases its phones. I’m happy for those who can afford and enjoy premium alternatives, and it’s not like Sony or Apple are taking away the excellent cheaper units. I just don’t love how it feels, as someone who doesn’t plan on buying them, to now own a lesser version of something that used to be top of the line. Rationally, I know I don’t need it, but emotionally, I can’t help but be tempted by it.
Still, PS5 games aren’t going to look any worse — games like Horizon Forbidden West and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart on a base PS5 continue to be some of the best-looking games anywhere, and I’m happy to see them get a chance to appear a bit more fully realized, even though the cost puts them out of reach for many.
