PS5 Technical Presentation live - are we about to see the PS5 Pro?
Could Mark Cerny be about to reveal the PS5 Pro at today's PlayStation 5 Technical Presentation?
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of today's PlayStation 5 Technical Presentation, otherwise known as the likely reveal of the PS5 Pro console.
Wherever you are in the world, we're only a matter of a few hours away from the presentation with PS5 lead architect Mark Cerny, where we'll likely see a shiny new hardware member of the PlayStation family revealed at 8am PT / 11am ET / 4pm BST.
I'm here to provide a rundown of what we can expect, what we're hoping for, all the best rumors and details that have surfaced so far, and more. Let's get into it!
I've been covering PlayStation hardware as part of my day job for about six years now, and that included the PS5 launch and extensive work on the stock shortages that followed. I'm a PlayStation fanatic too and have owned almost every single variant, am deep in the ecosystem, and love everything about the platform so I know what PlayStation fans are about, and what makes a great Sony gaming console.
And that's almost it! Cerny finishes by setting up a sizzle reel of first- and third-party games running on PS5 Pro, as well as a snapshot of the PS5 Pro itself.
It ends with a snapshot of the prices too...
$699.99 | £699.99 | €799.99 | ¥119.980
...as well as ray-tracing in Gran Turismo 7, and a boost to performance in Hogwarts Legacy.
There's lots of first-party games on offer in this presentation, as Mark Cerny now talks us through the larger graphics card in the context of Horizon Forbidden West...
He goes on to describe the 'big three' that will drive the improvements on offer to developers and gamers: a larger GPU (by about 45%), advanced ray-tracing, and PSSR AI-driven upscaling.
It's almost like the rumors were true!
Mark Cerny is now discussing the balance between fidelity and performance modes and the desire to narrow the divide between the two with the PS5 Pro...
Mark Cerny begins by going over some of the best successes of the now-base PlayStation 5 so far from a technical aspect. He's talking about how the the Tempest Audio enhances our experience along with the Haptics in the DualSense, as well as the core hardware components of the machine.
Here's Mark! And he's confirmed that it is the PS5 Pro!
Only 30 second to go! Let's see what Mark Cerny has got for us!
Another one of us is hoping that it doesn't drop the disc drive in particular...
"Although many leaks have suggested that the PS5 Pro won't come with a disc drive, I'm optimistic that this won't mean the end of physical games quite yet. If rumors are to be believed, the PS5 Pro will have a very similar design to the PS5 Slim - which already has its own Digital Edition without a disc drive.
Hopefully, this visual similarity means that the PS5 Pro will also be fully compatible with the existing Disc Drive for PS5 attachment, which enables full disc drive functionality in a PS5 Slim Digital Edition. Having to splash out $79.99 / £99.99 on a separate attachment after what is already likely to be quite an expensive PS5 Pro purchase would be a bit of a blow, but it would certainly be worthwhile if, like me, you already have an extensive physical game collection. Fingers crossed..."
Dash Wood, hardware writer
On TechRadar Gaming, we've got our own desires and wishes. I've asked my colleagues to share what they hope to see in the presentation.
"For PS5 Pro, it's not just performance that's key. It's optimization. In a reverse of what typically happens with console generations, we're seeing more recent big-ticket PS5 games perform relatively worse than those of earlier in the console's lifecycle. Titles like Horizon Forbidden West, Rise of the Ronin, and Star Wars Outlaws all struggled to maintain a smooth 60fps in their performance modes at launch.
This is something that I feel needs to be addressed with the PS5 Pro. More reliable performance for those who prefer higher framerates is a must here, along with a beefier internal SSD for speedier load times (and hopefully a bulkier 2TB capacity). Though as we're already seeing 40fps modes in titles like Star Wars Outlaws, aimed at folks with VRR-capable displays, there's potential for this to be the new standard going forward for big-budget AAA games."
Rhys Wood, hardware editor
While we all have an idea as to why we're all gathered here today, Sony did rather let slip as recently as yesterday...
Sony seemed to accidentally jump the gun in regards to the official PS5 Pro announcement. Ahead of today's Mark Cerny-hosted PlayStation 5 Technical Presentation, its as-of-now unlisted video bore the title of 'PS5 Pro' which sort of gives the game away.
We'll give Sony the benefit of the doubt and assume this was a mistake - with that 'PS5 Pro' video title potentially meant for after the presentation has aired. Seems a little too convenient though...
We're only ten minutes out from the presentation starting! We'll be taking you through all the ins and outs of the video itself and what Sony shows, as well as reminding you of a few key rumors that have cropped along our journey to this point.
