Sony finally announced the Playstation 5 Pro this past week, ending months of rumors about the console’s mid-cycle refresh. Playstation system architect Mark Cerny hosted a PS video presentation on September 10th, where the updated console made its grand debut.

Sony says PS5 Pro is “the most visually impressive way to play games on Playstation” and was designed to push higher quality graphics at higher frame rates. To achieve this, the PS5 Pro includes new features such as advanced ray-tracing, a GPU upgrade and an AI powered upscaling system called “PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution”.

The system has some other tricks up its sleeve too - it will improve image quality of PS4 games, which is always a nice touch. It also supports the latest versions of standards like Wi-Fi 7, VRR and even mentions 8K gaming. It also comes with three plastic black stripes in the middle to distinguish itself with a little flair - nice touch.

However it’s the price of the system and what it doesn’t include that has gotten the most attention online. The PS5Pro is going to run a cool $700 - not including a disk drive or a vertical stand. That hard earned $700 only nets you the PS5 Pro console, 2TB internal storage and a Dual Sense controller. You do still get Astro’s Playroom installed, so that’s something right ?

I do feel like for $700 you probably should get the disk drive included and probably the stand too. That’s just feels like that’s a little greedy, especially since Pro buyers are generally your top customers. There should be a more of a top-end complete feel for those who are buying your top-end product. 

As for the claimed performance improvements, the graphics look great, and it compares well with mid-level PC’s. If you have a PS5 don’t fret - unless you absolutely must have the latest and greatest you aren’t missing a lot here. The Pro is going to give you a slight increase in sharpness or little graphical details being enhanced. The ray-tracing improvements were more noticeable, with demos of both Hogwarts Legacy and Gran Turismo 7 looking fantastic. But with the price getting as high as it is, they are starting to venture into PC gaming territory. That’s what I feel a lot of people are going to be tempted to do - dabble with buying a gaming PC.

For consoles I felt like the upper price tier was always $500. Over that is a hard sell and the PC becomes a major competitor. Further pushing people towards PC is Microsoft seemingly setting this mid-gen cycle out. The Xbox has been struggling to find footing lately, so it’s probably best to focus on the next-gen Xbox. At $700 I don’t think Sony is going to sell a ton of these, but I’m still glad they made it. It’s nice to have an option if you want max performance on everything, here you go.