How PlayStation 5 Pro lays the foundation for PS6 and beyond

Today, as usual, a new DF Direct Weekly is out with the team’s thoughts on the current state of play, reactions to the recent RTX 5080/5090 leaks and, perhaps inevitably, more PlayStation 5 Pro. However, it is actually a point that was raised in last week’s Direct and that I would like to address in this week’s blog. Many believe – with some justification – that the PS5 Pro goes a step too far and that such a console is not necessary. In fact, we made the argument ourselves. Looking back on this article, I warned about the higher cost of a Pro console, but also looked at the potential improvements it could bring – all of which have come with the PS5 Pro. Microsoft declined the opportunity to follow suit, but now we have an idea of ​​why Sony chose a different path, and perhaps the strategy is better understood now.

However, before we get into that, I would like to highlight a clever point made by one of our DF Supporter Program supporters. If you’re invested in the PlayStation platform, skipping the PS5 Pro but are likely to get a PS6, the arrival of an improved device is probably very good news for you.

Let’s go back to the launch of Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. A key aspect of their appeal was the fact that your existing game library could be transferred to the new hardware. Microsoft made its plans clear to fans, but PlayStation’s message was confused – and yet PS5 reverse compatibility ultimately worked almost as well as the Xbox equivalent. The continuity of game libraries from one generation to the next made the idea of ​​switching platforms a hard sell, something Phil Spencer himself has pointed out.

• 0:00:00 Introduction
• 0:01:16 News 1: Sony reveals new games in State of Play
• 0:14:04 News 2: Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered analyzed
• 0:33:17 News 3: New PS5 Pro Enhanced titles announced
• 0:44:48 News 4: Assassin’s Creed Shadows is delayed
• 0:55:07 News 5: Dragon’s Dogma 2: How is Patch 9 on PS5?
• 1:00:44 News 6: Monster Hunter PC specs cause concern
• 1:14:01 News 7: RTX 5080 and 5090 specifications have reportedly been leaked
• 1:35:52 Supporter Q1: Should console generations be extended further?
• 1:42:44 Supporter Q2: Will the upcoming Microsoft handheld be based on FSR 4?
• 1:45:57 Supporter Q3: Would the split between Series S and X be okay if the S came with more storage?
• 1:53:47 Supporter Q4: Is there a difference between analyzing the footage provided and the footage you shot yourself?

“We lost the worst generation there was to lose with the Xbox One generation, where everyone built their digital game library,” he said. “I see a lot of pundits out there wanting to go back to the time when we all had cartridges and discs and every new generation was a fresh start and you could change the entire console portion. That’s just not the world we’re in today.

Another similarity between PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series The PS5 ran PS4 Pro games, while the Series X opted for the One X code path. Owners of the new consoles, designed for 4K displays, instantly had access to great-looking software that often offered very impressive improvements over the base equivalents. Additionally, the additional power of the new hardware also came into play in these older games – more stable performance and higher quality in games with dynamic resolution scaling and unlocked frame rates.

One can imagine the same thing will happen with the PlayStation 6 – it will inherit all of the PS5 Pro’s upgrades and offer the same cumulative improvements. Well, we would hope so. The idea is somewhat based on a robust form of backward compatibility, allowing all of the new machine’s power to be applied to old games – so a look at the PS5 Pro’s “Game Boost” mode for older titles will be revealing as to whether that is is possible. If you’re wondering why there’s any doubt here, the PS4 Pro’s Boost Mode was only a small improvement, while the PS5 mirrored certain elements of the PS4 Pro’s architecture, which may have made it easier to achieve improved performance. PS5 Pro doesn’t have that many similarities. The first task is to test Elden Ring, which has unlocked frame rates in all modes: if the increases match Sony’s proposed 45 percent performance increase for its GPU, the chances are higher for future PlayStation hardware to be able to also more practical to act.

That’s one aspect of how a PS5 Pro can benefit people who aren’t actually going to buy the console – better versions of the games you’ll own for years to come – but now we need to look at the overall strategic benefits for Sony. After all, at first glance, the idea of ​​releasing a £699/$699 console doesn’t sound like a particularly good idea. However, the Pro brings innovations in the console sector that are essential for the upcoming hardware. The CPU and GPU combination is now complemented by machine learning silicon.

PS5 Pro has shown that the ability to increase the console’s performance and features simply by producing faster, more complex CPUs and GPUs is now over. For a $100 price premium, Sony doubled the size of the PS4 GPU when developing the PS4 Pro. Today, with the PS5 Pro, a $250 price premium (over the equivalent base digital model) can’t do the same thing. Sony is achieving similar, if not entirely better, results by adding machine learning silicon and boosting graphics using AI hardware. It has also allowed Sony to add improved ray tracing capabilities to what is sure to be a very tight silicon budget.

I can already tell you that the next consoles from Sony and Microsoft will follow a similar strategy at the base architecture level. The cost per transistor isn’t what it used to be, and in consoles the cost of silicon is more important than in any other gaming device. There will hardly be any gigantic expansions, especially with the GPU, but with the AI ​​we are just at the beginning. As Nvidia’s innovations in this space continue to prove, machine learning hardware offers a gigantic return on investment – but getting to where Nvidia is now requires two things: investment and patience.

When I look at the criticism of the PS5 Pro today, I remember the massive backlash against Nvidia’s RTX 20 series products based on the Turing architecture in 2018. The products were expensive, no one believed in the AI ​​narrative , Ray tracing has been mocked. And yet, DLSS upscaling has proven to be one of the most transformative technologies in the PC space today – a desired feature for users and coveted by competitors. Ray tracing? With smart technological innovations, huge investments in software like ReSTIR, and strategic partnerships with major game publishers, Nvidia has established a true path for triple-A gaming.

None of this happened overnight and yet Nvidia has now effectively set the direction for graphics innovation and consoles need to catch up. And this is where the PS5 Pro comes into play. Sony took the smart route here by supplying the required custom silicon where AMD seemed to have none, while also developing PlayStation Spectral Resolution (PSSR) on the software side. We’ve been keeping an eye on PSSR in a number of games now, and while there’s still a lot of work to be done to improve it, it’s a big leap beyond existing upscaling solutions. But we should not forget that machine learning hardware is not just a fixed-function AI upscaling block – it can be used for all types of tasks. PSSR offers the best value for money, but that’s just the beginning.

We’re facing such a big change here that we should definitely look at the PlayStation 5 Pro as the console that gets the ball rolling for Sony in an area of ​​critical importance. I even dare to assume that the PlayStation 6 could even do that need For this development to take place, there must be a PlayStation 5 Pro. Sony’s technology companies need time to develop, ship and refine technologies like PSSR. In the meantime, developers need to get used to these technologies instead of just focusing on them in their PC games.

Sony is clearly not alone in this effort. Switch 2 will ship in 2025 with RT and machine learning silicon in its T239 processor, and unlike Sony, Nintendo has the advantage of leveraging Nvidia’s existing technologies. And then there is Microsoft. Xbox President Sarah Bond has talked about the 10th generation bringing “the biggest technological leap ever in a generation,” and I’d bet big money on that, referring to machine learning-based technologies, as opposed to one GPU that breaks the wallet.

We’ve already seen Microsoft’s Auto-SR upscaler appear out of nowhere, and as we were putting our coverage together, I was surprised at Microsoft’s willingness to talk to us about it, and there were some follow-up conversations after we went live with it were. Auto SR is impressive within its limitations, but it’s easy to imagine a more robust DLSS-like solution also in development for future hardware (however, Auto SR could be provided as-is for backwards compatibility).

Back to the PS5 Pro: We’ve now seen enough of the machine to say with some confidence that it does what Sony promises – but beyond that, with titles like F1 24, there’s evidence to suggest that those aiming for it The hardware in particular will see much larger increases than just “Fidelity mode at 60 fps.” PS5 Pro doesn’t conclusively answer the value question – not yet – but it delivers significantly better results than the base hardware. However, taken holistically, today’s additional improvements could well lay the foundation for the viability of the 10th generation console hardware – and in that sense, their importance should not be underestimated.