I've had my PlayStation 5 since 2021, and boy, did it take alot of saving petty cash. Now, the lack of a steady stream of exclusive titles has been one of my major gripes with the current console generation, but there's really nothing like kicking back into the recliner with the controller at the end of the week and putting on a game until my eyes droop.
Things had been going pretty smoothly, especially thanks tomy boot-legged PS Portal, which allowed me to game anywhere around the house. So when Sony decided to announce the PlayStation 5 Pro in September 2024, I barely batted an eye. All in all, the PS5 Pro promises the fidelity of the base PS5's Quality Mode with the smooth 60fps of the Performance Mode — a trade-off I still can't come to terms with in 2025. Regardless, through PSSR, Sony's counterpart for DLSS and FSR upscaling tech, the PS5 Pro did offer enhanced visuals, but it was all barely noticeable unless you were pixel peeping. Oh, and it costs $700.
I've spent the better part of the year telling everyone who comes to me for advice about why the PS5 Pro is a terrible purchase to make, and yet now, I've made up my mind about buying the damn thing and trading in my base PlayStation 5. Time to stop being an amateur and move on to the professional leagues, I guess.
5 reasons switching from PC to console makes more sense than ever
With the state PC hardware and gaming is in, many gamers are considering a switch to consoles.
There are plenty of reasons not to buy the PlayStation 5 Pro
It's why half the gaming world has scoffed at the $700 console the past year
For starters, there's the price tag itself. $700 is no joke, and it never will be. One of the biggest pull factors that consoles have always had is their affordability, and a $700 consolewith additional costs that run up the bill and create a sinkhole in your wallet is not, by any means, affordable.
Furthermore, it'sexclusively a digital console, which means if you're all for physical preservation, you're already going to be set back by another $80 for a disc drive to attach to it,just so you can play the physical games you already paid for. I've got plenty of PS5 discs, and so many for the PlayStation 4 that I absolutelywill have to pay extra for the disc drive.
What next? Between the lack of PS5 Pro-enhanced exclusive games so far, and so many PS5 titles likeGod of WarRagnarök,Spider-Man 2, andReturnalbeing on Steam, there are plenty of reasons I keep reminding myself of to convince myself not to buy one. However, all those attempts have failed, and the PS5 Pro, which has been looking at me in my dreams like the Green Goblin mask, is now something I've made up my mind to purchase.
5 complaints I have from the current console generation
The ninth gaming generation has been a letdown, riddled with high costs and industry-wide setbacks.
AMD and Sony's latest announcement is a major factor
The PS5 Pro's upscaling is about to get significantly better
Right now, the only games that I look forward to playing on the PS5 Pro areDeath Stranding 2, andOctober'sGhost of Yotei — a game I've been looking forward to, eagerly. 2026, however, is going to be seeing a lot of PS5 andconsole-exclusive games. Better late than never for the ninth generation to actually get going, right?
Sony just announced that while the PlayStation 5 Pro, thanks to its 67% stronger GPU than the base PS5, utilizes PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution), the console will be receiving the full version of AMD's fantastic FSR 4 frame generation technology next year in 2026. Thetwo companies have been working closely on upscaling on the PlayStation, and AMD's FSR4 frame-gen tech reallycaught up to NVIDIA's DLSS 4 last year in terms of quality and anti-ghosting, and now, it's slated to replace PSSR as the upscaling method on the PS5 Pro.
Mark Cerny confirmed that the full feature set of FSR 4 will be coming to PS5 Pro owners, with nothing shaved off the edges.
4 ways FSR 4 gives DLSS 4 a run for its money
FSR is no longer an afterthought for gamers
Major 2026 games are going to look better than ever on the PS5 Pro
Major exclusive releases have been sporadic so far, but 2026 could right the ship
Now, PS5-exclusive games are definitely going to look a lot better, clearer, and sharper on the Pro console, but it'sGrand Theft Auto VI that I have in mind. The console-exclusive game doesn't look like it will run at 60fps on the PS5 orXbox Series X. Even if it does, through the default Performance Mode, I know that I wouldn't want to experience the most-anticipated game of the past two generations on anything less than the best, and with FSR 4 coming into the fray, the Pro wouldundoubtedlydeliver better results in the game.
Sure, I'm still going to buy it for PC when it comes, since that would probably coincide with the time I move to a 60-series card, but that's a bridge to cross later. Right now, with FSR 4 on the way, the experience of playing the nextGrand Theft Auto game would be best on the PS5 Pro — at least that's the way I see it.
Combine that with Insomniac'sWolverineandVenom, which are predicted to be coming out in 2026, along withIntergalactic: The Heretic Prophet that could potentially come out late next year, and I'm completely on board with FSR making these games look even better on the PS5 Pro's Performance Mode — 60 fps, and unmatched visual quality.
Playing Death Stranding 2 on the base PS5 convinced me about the Pro
I kept switching between Quality and Performance modes
I just playedDeath Stranding 2, a fantastic next-gen experience on my base PS5 console, and you can read my review for the same over here. Now, even in the 60fps Performance Mode,Death Stranding 2looksriveting. This is atruly next-gen game, and a sign of things to come. The Decima engine, praise be to it, is nothing short of incredible, and both the 30fps Quality and 60fps Performance modes in the game were something I couldn't get enough of.
Look, it's 2025 — I have a high-end PC with all the frame generation in the world, and I settle for nothing less than 3 digits on the frame counter for any game I play. However, over on the PS5, I still played half ofDeath Stranding 2: On the Beach, at 30fps in the Quality Mode, just because it looked so much better than the 60 fps Performance Mode.
Sure, some of my friends couldn't tell the difference,but I could, and I kept switching between the two fps modes, unable to pick a favorite. I get that it's ame problem, and ideally, I should simply just think of the Performance Mode's visuals as the default one. After all, 60 fps is a non-negotiable today, and yet, I can't get the thought of being able to enjoy the Quality Mode's visuals at 60 fps — the entire premise of the Pro.
As such, since that's going to be the case for all the rest of the big Sony-exclusive releases to come next year, I've decided that I'm going to be enjoying the last couple of years of this console's life cycle with its strongest variant, just so I can quiet the voices in my mind.
Sony PlayStation 5 Pro (PS5 Pro)
- 4K Capability
- Yes
- Brand
- Sony
- Storage
- 2 TB
- RAM
- 16 GB GDDR5 + 2GB DDR5
- Released
- November 7, 2024
The PS5 Pro is Sony’s upcoming mid-gen upgrade, promising enhanced 4K performance, faster ray tracing, and improved visuals—perfect for gamers seeking a more powerful PlayStation 5 experience.
There's one final hurdle, though
Buying the PS5 Pro locally will cost me a whopping $1,050.
It's sad that I can't just make up my mind about a PS5 Pro and simply end up going to the nearest store to get one. For some reason, Sony doesn't sell the Pro variant in India, and while the company cites the government's stay order on devices with Wi-Fi 7, the truth is that they know it won't sell over here in the numbers they need.
As such, my only option would be to have a friend from overseas get it, where the entire console with a disc drive would set me back by exactly $780, or simply get it from a local retailer. The latter, however, will cost a whopping $1,050, and since I couldn't in my right mind call myself a tech guy and still pay that sort of money for a console, I'm simply going to have to wait for a friend to fly home, carrying an open PS5 Pro with them.
