The PlayStation 5 Pro is Sony's latest machine for gamers serious enough about it to pay $700 for a console. Sean Hollister, having gotten some time with one, reports that it's "clearly better."
I want you to know my conclusion isn't quite the same as it was eight years ago. While it's clearly better than the PS5, I'm not yet sold. That's mostly because Sony is charging several hundred dollars more than last time — but also partly because I had to stand so close to the 4K screen to get that eye-popping result. … if you're the kind of person who already sets your PS5 games to "Quality" or "Fidelity" or "Graphics" mode rather than "Performance," I bet you'll see a huge increase in smoothness with the PS5 Pro no matter how far away you sit. Some went from utterly choppy to downright buttery for me on the PS5 Pro, with almost all the visual quality (if not more) than the original PS5's fidelity modes.
The biggest surprise for me, though, was seeing a console that can offer so many of the immersive benefits of ray tracing without massive slowdowns. It's unlikely many games will add ray tracing modes specifically for the PS5 Pro, but Formula One racing game F1 24 already had them — and it now lets you drive at an upscaled 4K and 60fps with them turned on.
He also warns that the demo environment was tightly controlled—they weren't allowed to take photos or videos close to the screens, etc.
Previously:
• Red Dead Redemption II's latest trailer reminds me which gaming console I'm supposed to buy
• Sony announces miniature Playstation Classic, with 20 games built-in
• PlayStation sneakers from Nike
