Sony PS5 Pro rumors circulating

[crispy4000]

EXCLUSIVE - PS5 Pro in Development, Could Release Late 2024 - Insider Gaming

INSIDER-GAMING.COM

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Insider Gaming sources have confirmed that the PS5 Pro is in development and could release with a tentative release date of late 2024.

 

[Brian]

Would love early 2024, but I’ll take it. 

[Keyser_Soze]

Jeff Grubb, who's cited in the article, is speculative of this claim saying that making a pro console for just improved ray tracing doesn't make much sense.

I personally don't think it's needed but if Jim Ryan wants to make more money there are plenty of people out there to scoop this up.

[crispy4000]

Market forces may dictate that its unnecessary, but a mid-gen refresh is now a competitive precedent.  I bet both Sony and Microsoft don't want to be caught with their pants down.  Sony just launched a VR headset for the price of a console, so I don't think the cost of a premium product would push them away from developing it.

 

As for whether this gen needs it, the writing is on the wall IMO.  These consoles are only about as RT capable as a 2060 Super.  UE5 will be heavy in AAA titles.  And its likely that AMD's frame generation solution will need a beefier spec to have practical use.

[stepee]

It’s what is going to be needed to keep performance and resolution up to the standards people have enjoyed with cross gen. Current gen only titles are only just beginning and 30fps only is already starting to pop up with some games and resolutions are tanking to below 1080p native. I don’t want to play Last of Us 3 at 900p upscaled using fsr2 at 30fps so this would be great for me.

 

Also now that I have a psvr2 yeahhhh give me more power there too. 

[crispy4000]

22 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Jeff Grubb, who's cited in the article, is speculative of this claim saying that making a pro console for just improved ray tracing doesn't make much sense.

That's like saying that the Xbox 360 didn't need to exist because the og Xbox did bump mapping just fine.

 

These consoles are now a generational leap behind with it.

[Spork3245]

19 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Jeff Grubb, who's cited in the article, is speculative of this claim saying that making a pro console for just improved ray tracing doesn't make much sense.

I personally don't think it's needed but if Jim Ryan wants to make more money there are plenty of people out there to scoop this up.

 

If RT performance improves then all performance would also improve since AMD hasn't increased their RT performance on it's own.

[AbsolutSurgen]

Mid-generational leaps are now the norm, it's less a question of "if" than "when".   They've probably been working on this since the PS5 launched.

[stepee]

If AMD can really get frame gen going similar to nvidia dlss3 this upgrade could be better than last gen too since they can double that cpu too essentially which more so than the pro systems last gen could allow them to push 60fps in addition to resolution and graphics features.

[crispy4000]

1 minute ago, Spork3245 said:

 

If RT performance improves then all performance would also improve since AMD hasn't increased their RT performance on it's own.

 

I wouldn't put it past Sony and AMD to do something bespoke together.  After all, the last Pro model built checkerboarding acceleration into the hardware.

[Keyser_Soze]

16 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

That's like saying that the Xbox 360 didn't need to exist because the og Xbox did bump mapping just fine.

 

He was mainly saying it from a consumer standpoint. If improved raytracing is on the box it's not going to help sell the system, at least among the mainstream. The mid gen refresh was to push 4k which was exciting but improved raytracing isn't the equivalent of that.

[AbsolutSurgen]

Put "better graphics" on the box, and people will buy it.

[Spork3245]

13 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

I wouldn't put it past Sony and AMD to do something bespoke together.  After all, the last Pro model built checkerboarding acceleration into the hardware.

 

RT is a bit more involved in terms of hardware than checkerboarding (even with acceleration) afaik. I don't think Sony would want to put out the money for something like that for a mid-gen refresh console; if this were a PS6, sure.

[Keyser_Soze]

18 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

Put "better graphics" on the box, and people will buy it.

 

Pretty much. it's a PS5 and if people say it's better, even if it's not, people will buy it. Seems like even high prices aren't even the deathblow they used to be, long gone are the days of 599 US dollars. People would buy it for that and more.

[crispy4000]

40 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

He was mainly saying it from a consumer standpoint. If improved raytracing is on the box it's not going to help sell the system, at least among the mainstream. The mid gen refresh was to push 4k which was exciting but improved raytracing isn't the equivalent of that.

 

Last time around the excuse for these machines was 4k and to stave the cycle of people from migrating to PC mid-gen.  The latter hasn't changed.  If anything, it's only being held back by pricing at the moment.

This time, I could see the major pitch being less-compromised raytracing and FSR3 taking full advantage of VRR displays.  Oh, and still getting to play games at 60fps+ like people are used to now.  That's a big one.

[Mr.Vic20]

Too late to help with FF XVI, so I don't care! 

[crispy4000]

42 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

 

RT is a bit more involved in terms of hardware than checkerboarding (even with acceleration) afaik. I don't think Sony would want to put out the money for something like that for a mid-gen refresh console; if this were a PS6, sure.

 

Sony probably expects Microsoft to push RT mid-cycle.  I bet they're both investing in it.

GPU is the obvious direction to go if they don't want to leave this generation early.  I think that pattern will hold if we see these consoles materialize.  It makes even more sense with FSR3 coming.

[Paperclyp]

The media has been so off on their type of news recently. 
 

Im not in the market anyway. Never upgraded my 4 either. 

[ShreddieMercury]

Ray-tracing is probably the least impressive graphical upgrade that I've seen in all my years of gaming.  Like lots of buzzy GFX terms through the ages, its impact on enhancing/innovating/improving gameplay is extremely minimal so far.  It can be impressive if somebody points it out and shows the difference between a RT and non-RT image, but once a game is in motion, I don't understand why we should give a shit.  In terms of actually affecting the image, to my eyes HDR makes more of a difference, but it also does not enhance the gameplay to any degree.  This gen is a bust.

[Mr.Vic20]

If I was focused on a mid gen refresh for the PS5, RT is not where I'd spend my "points". I would focus on more GPU cores and a larger NVME drive. Fortunately, this early rumor is probably reffering to a generational change in GPU tech from RDNA 2 to 3, which based on the architecture swap alone, will automatically handle RT more efficiently per core. 

[best3444]

Nice. Next year sometime we'll definitely need it so I'm all for this. 

[HardAct]

15 minutes ago, ShreddieMercury said:

Ray-tracing is probably the least impressive graphical upgrade that I've seen in all my years of gaming.  Like lots of buzzy GFX terms through the ages, its impact on enhancing/innovating/improving gameplay is extremely minimal so far.  It can be impressive if somebody points it out and shows the difference between a RT and non-RT image, but once a game is in motion, I don't understand why we should give a shit.  In terms of actually affecting the image, to my eyes HDR makes more of a difference, but it also does not enhance the gameplay to any degree.  This gen is a bust.

It just depends on the title and the type of game. RT done well is extremely noticeable in open world games. Twitch shooters not so much. You wouldn't need to have it pointed out in games like Cyberpunk. It's pretty amazing, but very taxing on a system.

[Keyser_Soze]

29 minutes ago, ShreddieMercury said:

Ray-tracing is probably the least impressive graphical upgrade that I've seen in all my years of gaming.  Like lots of buzzy GFX terms through the ages, its impact on enhancing/innovating/improving gameplay is extremely minimal so far.  It can be impressive if somebody points it out and shows the difference between a RT and non-RT image, but once a game is in motion, I don't understand why we should give a shit.  In terms of actually affecting the image, to my eyes HDR makes more of a difference, but it also does not enhance the gameplay to any degree.  This gen is a bust.

 

like most graphical technologies it's there to make things look pretty, so if your expectations are it's going to have a substantial effect on gameplay you'll be disappointed.

Although I think if properly (fully) implemented it could have an effect on gameplay because it's literally real time lights and stuff. But it's so taxing to actually do that you haven't seen the full potential realized yet.

[Spork3245]

1 hour ago, crispy4000 said:

Sony probably expects Microsoft to push RT mid-cycle.  I bet they're both investing in it.

A cheaper investment is probably switching to nVidia over trying to get AMD to suddenly care about RT performance 

 

Again, I’d sooner expect a more “powerful” gpu overall, which in turn can handle RT better (through brute force) as opposed to something special specifically for better RT performance.

[Spork3245]

58 minutes ago, ShreddieMercury said:

Ray-tracing is probably the least impressive graphical upgrade that I've seen in all my years of gaming.  Like lots of buzzy GFX terms through the ages, its impact on enhancing/innovating/improving gameplay is extremely minimal so far.  It can be impressive if somebody points it out and shows the difference between a RT and non-RT image, but once a game is in motion, I don't understand why we should give a shit.  In terms of actually affecting the image, to my eyes HDR makes more of a difference, but it also does not enhance the gameplay to any degree.  This gen is a bust.

With all due respect: you’re incredibly wrong and have not seen many games with good RT implementation. Reflections on sky scrapers alone in Spider-Man remastered make a huge difference. When you move to a high end PC that’s capable of much more, the difference only widens.

[Xbob42]

Yeah, raytracing has an absolute plethora of gameplay altering potential, but with consoles barely being able to get a shitty, compromised and subpar version of it going at 30 FPS, and it being relatively new, don't expect much for a while yet. (Though I will say reflections alone is huge, reflections are absent in most AAA titles because they're "hard" so RT brings them back.)

For some ideas on how it could affect gameplay...

 

- Massively enhanced real-time shadows and lighting in general means a stealth game could be far more interesting, even multiplayer stealth if that's your thing! The way light sources interact with the world and objects in it is much more dynamic than standard lighting. While we've had decent character and NPC shadows in games for a while, raytracing could easily take it to the next level.

 

- Reflections, reflections, reflections. Is there any kind gameplay they can't enhance? Put a lil mirror on your gun to see behind you, see enemies reflecting in the metal bits of your weapon, or in puddles, or on windows. This is just the simplest concept, but there's so much potential, especially with, say, weapons or tools that interact with reflections, when we're talking about less realistic games.

 

- Light actually bouncing and reflecting color as well means it can be used in realistic ways. DF famously used this in Minecraft to make a camera obscura, or pinhole camera.

 

I don't think I need to explain how "light bounces so realistically you can emulate real world phenomena to do crazy shit" might alter gameplay.

 

But of course, a lot of current games are just "we made better shadows" or "we added blurry ass reflections because the PS5 was already struggling" -- but there's so much potential here for any devs that truly want to buckle down and take advantage of this for more than just the simplest of additions.

[Keyser_Soze]

Like you could make a puzzle environment where you had to navigate a dark room but you could only guide yourself by throwing a light ball in the room, and the ball would bounce off things and look cool but make it more challenging to navigate over something like baked in lighting.

 

That's just an idea off the top of my head.

[Spork3245]

Just now, Keyser_Soze said:

Like you could make a puzzle environment where you had to navigate a dark room but you could only guide yourself by throwing a light ball in the room, and the ball would bounce off things and look cool but make it more challenging to navigate over something like baked in lighting.

 

That's just an idea off the top of my head.

I remember with Battlefield V that people with non-RTX cards were complaining about how if you could use ray tracing you had an unfair advantage because you could use reflections to see an enemy sneaking up behind you

[crispy4000]

23 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

A cheaper investment is probably switching to nVidia over trying to get AMD to suddenly care about RT performance 

 

Again, I’d sooner expect a more “powerful” gpu overall, which in turn can handle RT better (through brute force) as opposed to something special specifically for better RT performance.

 

No disagreement on that first part, in theory.  Sony already dropped Nvidia once, who knows what it would take to build that relationship back.

 

AMD has brute forced things so far, and while I wouldn't expect them to switch strategies entirely, I think the console manufacturers will be searching for some way to cheat things.  Could be some kind of hardware level approach to make FSR3 (more) viable without a monster rig.  That could do it.

[AbsolutSurgen]

You don't make a change like that mid-gen.

 

If Nvidia is in a position to make an x86 APU, Sony could consider them.  Are they?

[stepee]

Y’all, obviously Sony will be going intel for the refresh 

[cusideabelincoln]

22 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

No disagreement on that first part, in theory.  Sony already dropped Nvidia once, who knows what it would take to build that relationship back.

 

AMD has brute forced things so far, and while I wouldn't expect them to switch strategies entirely, I think the console manufacturers will be searching for some way to cheat things.  Could be some kind of hardware level approach to make FSR3 (more) viable without a monster rig.  That could do it.

RDNA3 has AI acceleration hardware, which could be used for upscaling.

[Brian]

15 minutes ago, stepee said:

Y’all, obviously Sony will be going Boosteroid for the refresh 

 

[SuperSpreader]

Ridiculous! These are barely out. 

[LazyPiranha]

I don’t see the reason for this outside of there being enough suckers out there.  RE4 is a huge upcoming release and it’s still getting last gen ports.  Why bother making a pro version of a console that’s still being somewhat kneecapped by the PS4/Bone generation?