My Time With The PS5 Pro Reaffirmed I Shouldn’t Spend $700 Right Now–My Base PS5 Is Still Enough
The PlayStation 5 Pro seems like a tough sell, especially to players who already own the original PS5. That’s a sentiment I had going into a preview event for the PS5 Pro and one I still have after spending a few hours with the new console.
If I didn’t already have a PS5, then the PS5 Pro would be on my shortlist–the level of detail it brings to Pro-enhanced games like Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth and Horizon Forbidden West is incredible, catapulting the experience of playing a game so that it now gets performance mode-style frame rates with fidelity mode-style graphics. And, of course it does. The PS5 Pro’s hardware is superior to the base PS5–it should make games look better. But nothing at the event convinced me I needed to go out and get a Pro the moment it launches. It’s clear that, for now at least, the base PS5 is still perfectly serviceable when it comes to playing PlayStation’s first-party titles. I’m more than content to save my $700.
To better understand how the PS5 Pro is impacting how PlayStation’s first-party studios will be developing their games going forward, I spoke with Sony Interactive Entertainment senior principal product manager Toshi Aoki. We also discussed the technical details and the development of PS5 Pro, such as the implementation of the console’s cooling systems to ensure the Pro doesn’t run hotter than the base PS5 despite the boosts to the GPU.