PS5 Pro to Launch on September 10th, Featuring Performance Boost and Potential Price Increase

PS5 Pro to Launch on September 10th, Featuring Performance Boost and Potential Price IncreaseWhile the tech world focuses on the Apple vs. Huawei battle, Sony has announced an upcoming event on September 10th

PS5 Pro to Launch on September 10th, Featuring Performance Boost and Potential Price Increase

While the tech world focuses on the Apple vs. Huawei battle, Sony has announced an upcoming event on September 10th. Sony Interactive Entertainment released a statement on its website, confirming an online tech showcase on September 10th at 11 am EDT (11 pm Beijing time). The event, led by Mark Cerny, the chief architect of the PS5, will focus on "innovations in PS5 and gaming technology".

Mark Cerny's participation, combined with previous leaks about new product release schedules, has led the market to believe that Tuesday is the launch date for the PS5 Pro gaming console. Notably, last week, in an article celebrating PlayStation's 30th anniversary, Sony subtly hinted at a new product a PS5 with "three black stripes" on the top. This design closely resembles leaked photos of the PS5 Pro retail packaging.

According to prior leaks, the PS5 Pro is a significant upgrade bridging two generations. Its main selling point is a considerable graphics performance boost, aiming to meet the demands of new games like "Black Myth: Wukong" with their increasingly demanding rendering requirements.

The PS5 Pro's GPU boasts a rendering speed that's roughly 45% faster than the standard PS5, roughly aligning with the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT graphics card. Its floating-point computation capability is enhanced by 227%, and memory speed is increased from 448GB/s to 576GB/s. Additionally, game developers will gain access to a larger system memory, expanding from 12.5GB to 13.7GB. This improvement supports Sony's own spectral super-resolution (PSSR) technology, similar to Nvidia's DLSS or AMD's FSR. Leaks suggest a mere 2ms latency for upscaling 1080p images to 4K, and the company is striving to support up to 8K resolution.

Compared to the significant GPU upgrade, the CPU's performance will be close to the standard version, only adding an overclocking mode boosting performance by 10% (from 3.5GHz to 3.85GHz). However, this mode slightly reduces GPU power, resulting in a 1% performance decrease.

While the performance improvements are evident, the biggest mystery remains the price. The original PS5 launched in April 2019 and hit shelves later that year. The version with a Blu-ray drive starts at 49,980 in Japan, 3,899 in China, and $499 in the US. Nearly four years later, Sony abruptly announced a price increase for the PS5 in late August, citing inflation and the depreciating Japanese yen. The price in Japan rose to 60,478, and in China to 4,299. However, considering the significant graphics rendering capabilities, consumer electronics analysts believe that unlike the previous PS4 Pro, the PS5 Pro is unlikely to match the PS5's launch price. The pricing is likely to see a notable increase.

Serkan Toto, founder of Japanese gaming industry analysis firm Kantan Games, predicts a price range of $600-650 for the PS5 Pro. Anonymous posters on the 4chan platform have also leaked promotional posters from Sony, indicating a $699.99 price for the PS5 Pro with a disc drive and $599.99 for the digital version.