Rumor: PS5 Pro Dev Kit Prototypes to be Sent to 1st-Party Devs Soon - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 May 2023 / 9,850 Views
There was a rumor in March of this year Sony Interactive Entertainment was developing a PlayStation 5 Pro with a tentative release window of late 2024. This was according to sources who spoke with Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson.
Henderson is now reporting "with a 100% degree of certainty" the PS5 Pro is in development. The first dev kit prototypes are expected to be in the hands of first-party PlayStation developers in the next couple of months, with third-party developers receiving them by the end of the year.
Henderson is the one who previously reported on the updated PlayStation 5 with a detachable disc drive that is rumored to release later this year that will phase out the current PS5 model within a year.
The detachable disc drive will be connected to the PlayStation using an extra USB-C port on the back of the console. This updated PS5 is also rumored to not have any major hardware changes from the original PS5.
It has also been rumored Sony is developing a new PlayStation handheld. The handheld is codenamed Q Lite and rather than being a dedicated gaming device or cloud-streaming device, it will instead use Remote Play with the PlayStation 5. The Q Lite handheld is reported to use adaptive streaming up to 1080p and 60 frames per second, and require a persistent internet connection.
Early prototypes are said to look similar to the PlayStation 5 DualSense controller, but with an 8-inch touchscreen in the middle. It includes adaptive triggers for haptic feedback, volume buttons, speakers, an audio jack, and more.
The Q Lite handheld is in the quality assurance phase and is scheduled to launch after the rumored PS5 with detachable disc drive and before the rumored PS5 Pro.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Too early . I'd rather wish they didn't release a pro, because it just makes it easier to tap into the raw power reserves of the pro instead of finding ways to maximise efficiency and push the current setup further, like they did with the ps3.
It's still some 18 months away from launch, and the Pro didn't affect PS4 games. Every developer will know >90% of the userbase is in the standard console.
I wish it would release this fall
I don't think devs have even fully tapped the power of the current PS5 yet...
Not even half
They absolutely haven't. Ditto the Xbox Series consoles. A PS5 Pro may indeed be in development, as much as I question the wisdom of it, but a late 2024 release would be premature IMO.
Being in development doesn't necessarily mean we'll ever see it released. After the launch of mid-gen upgrades from both MS and Sony last generation, we can be confident that they are both working on them for this generation as well. They may not release them. But they will each have one ready in case market conditions warrant it.
I think we can also say with confidence that if either Sony or Microsoft announce a mid generation upgrade, the other will do the same.
I agree with you that it being in development doesn't necessarily mean we'll ever see it released. I think we can be pretty confident that Sony is at least considering releasing a Pro console, given the growing number of insider statements saying it's so.
That said, I don't think we can be as confident that Microsoft is. Having launched with two power levels (S and X), they're less likely to want to introduce a third.
Now, they could release a more powerful X, and keep the S the same I guess, that could be interesting. Or even a more powerful X, and a more powerful S, on the same architecture.
But my best guess is they'll hold the line until they can migrate to a new architecture entirely. Xen 4 and RDNA 3 maybe? They proved with the Series S that they could get better overall performance than the One X but with lower manufacturing costs. So I think they're going to want to do that again.
I would say it all depends on how much it would cost to produce, the sales curve of HW and most importantly the sales curve of SW. Because the two main reasons last gen (being low power from the beginning and 4K adoption doesn't seem to apply this gen) aren't here I don't think a Pro will launch unless something unexpected happens.
My best guess is neither will release a Pro console. My second-best guess is that Sony will release a Pro console, but that Microsoft won't and will instead launch the next generation sooner than Sony.
Not impossible, but if MS still believes on the power narrative being important then they may release it to not be to much behind Sony. But yep it is impossible to be sure and of course it could happen that MS seeing that this gen is about over instead of launching a Pro after Sony decides to undercut Sony with a new gen (and if Sony still remembers PS360 era they will likely be aware of the risk).
Agreed. But they released the One X a year after the PS4 Pro. So they'd probably be happy to wait a year, or maybe even two, if it gave them a generational leap ahead?
If it is for a generational leap I have no doubt they would be willing to let sony have a "much stronger" PS5 while short shifting to a new gen and making Sony less nimble to counter it (would be bad to release the next gen on Sony 1 or 2 years after the Pro while MS not releasing a Pro would have no concern about it).
Yeah, that's my thinking. Microsoft having two power levels this gen probably doesn't want to expand that to 3 or 4. And if they could instead launch a new gen, with full backwards compatibility, with equal/better power and cheaper manufacturing than a "pro" console? That makes total sense to Microsoft. Somewhat shorter generations, but two SKUs every generation, and always maintaining compatibility with previous gens.
PS5 Pro at 500$, PS5 Slim at 399$ and PS5 DE at 299$ would be fantastic
Of course there's a PS5 Pro in development. But being in development and coming to market are very different things.
I still don't see the point. The only thing I would switch to a pro model for is if it could offer full ray tracing at the same frame rate as the fidelity modes on the current hardware. But, I can't imagine that for a few more years unless this thing is going to be 800 USD.
Ray-tracing at higher frame rates is a big selling point for us enthusiasts, but I bet you the average casual purchaser's eyes would glaze over if you even tried to explain to them what ray-tracing is. :)
The PS4 Pro and Xbox One X made perfect sense, because of the explosion of 4K TVs. People had bought expensive new TVs and wanted something to show them off.
There's no corresponding impetus for ray-tracing. Ray-tracing is friggin' cool, I've been interested in it since seeing ray-traced still images in the '80s done on Commodore Amiga computers! But they're not the same slam-dunk with consumers that 4K was last generation.
That's why I question the very wisdom of a PS5 Pro, honestly, especially as we're just starting to leave the cross-gen period now, 2.5 years into this generation.
I was thinking the same thing. Unless a new PS5 Pro could run something like Cyberpunk in its full path trace mode at 60fps, I doubt I would get a Pro version. I bought the pro version the last time and I have to say, it really did not feel like I got anything from it based on the price I paid. I am even less interested in a pro version unless there is a significant power difference between the old version.
Since the One S was weaker than the PS4, but the One X was more powerful than the PS4 Pro, the jump from the One S to the One X was much more satisfying than the jump from the PS4 to the PS4 Pro.
If a hypothetical PS5 Pro is as small a jump over the PS5, as the PS4 Pro was over the PS4, then it'll have even less reason to exist due to the law of diminishing returns.
To many rumors without anything concrete. And although I don't expect the PS5Pro to be a big improvement I will likely pick it up so the base model go to my children.
I'm happy with my PS5. Since games are still released cross platform on PS4 I think that the original PS5 will be fine for many years still. My eye is not trained enough to see difference between this gens games and past gen so the pro is obviously not for me.
SSD in PS5 Slim should be 1 TB instead of 825 GB. SSD's are extremely cheap now. And PRO should have 2 TB!
The reason for the 825 instead of the 1TB is the "channels" used, so they could go 1650GB, but wouldn't go 1TB because of the architecture itself.
I recall Cerny saying that. But I also question that. The second drives can be any size. And in Digital Foundry testing, the internal drive approximately matched alternative SSDs in the second slot when it came to read speeds, and significantly underperformed them when it came to write speeds. So how beneficial/necessary is it, really, I wonder?
At the time it was true, and was the reason why Sony mandated drives be faster than the internal drive to overcome the efficiency, by the time they unlocked the second slot the internal drive ,equivalent or faster SSD's had hit the market also earlier than anticipated driven in part by the increased spotlight on SSD's from PS5 and Series X and in PS5's case the opportunity for tens of millions of extra sales
I really can't say if anything changed and if it would be worth to go 175GB higher and have a 1TB driver. But considering it is couple years after launch already I would expect the base model to double memory without increasing price, even more if they aren't giving any relevant price cut.
I'll have $600 waiting, and ready to go.
Rumor is a rumor take it with a grain of salty salt haha
Unless it's way smaller, which I strongly doubt, I don't really care.
Considering how much faster PC hardware has come since the consoles launched a few years ago... And how much faster they will be in another 1-2 years, it would probably make sense for those chasing 60fps.
That and Ray Tracing is sorely lacking on current consoles due to lack of hardware, it's a very notable difference when you step up to PC.
I totally agree about ray tracing really a big part of something I would be willing to purchase a pro version of either console if they could do path tracing on the level of Cyberpunk. Stable 60fps would also be great but I a m not sure if I would go out and purchase a pro version right away like I did the last time. I would love to see AMD really up their game in ray tracing and also provide a better implementation of FSR to compete with Nvidia.
But why?
"This updated PS5 is also rumored to not have any major hardware changes from the original PS5."
Then what's the point?
What minor changes make this a "pro" and worth buying?
Just like with the PS4/ PS4 Pro situation we shall see PS5 parity maintained, the main difference is there will be a broadening of the number and types of PC style options that we have already started to see on some PS5 games with that broader range being offered when the game is using the Pro compared to the same game on PS5, with first party being the ones to make the most use of those extra options.
So how badly are series S going to tank the industry now that pro consoles are coming out...
