Sony announces PS5 Pro, a $700 graphics workhorse available Nov. 7

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/09/sony-announces-ps5-pro-a-700-graphics-workhorse-available-nov-7/

by ksec • 2 years ago

43 94 2 years ago

arstechnica.com

mouse_• 2 years ago

this generation is so boring

thatguy0900• 2 years ago

Honestly crazy to me that people will pay 700 for a Playstation instead of 8-900 for a pc

cassianoleal• 2 years ago

I don't think you can get anywhere close to the performance of a PS5Pro with an 8-900 bucks PC.

There's also the matter of the user experience, the fact that a lot of people have a large catalog of games on the PS platform.

On the other hand, there's a lot of stuff that can be done on a PC that's just impossible on a console.

On the one hand, the console is a bargain. On the other, not nearly as much. Apples, oranges.

imbnwa4• 2 years ago

There's also the matter of the user experience, the fact that a lot of people have a large catalog of games on the PS platform.

Playnite is no match at all for the PS5 interface, which also handles streaming apps, which Playnite does not from what I can tell. I use both and know very well. The last place a user wants to deal with buggy behavior (bug right now in Playnite where I won't be able to use controller to move to the top bar in Playnite) or a manual touch to get things going the right way (Windows multi-display behavior is insanely bad, you need a Playnite plugin to fix it so things always launch on the TV and not the monitor, but you have to assign this for each new game) is entertainment center UX.

Retric4• 2 years ago

PCs are a lot more hassle if you just want to chill and play games.

Not such a big deal if you’re using the computer for other stuff, but a 2nd living room PC just never made sense to me.

jurassicfoxy• 2 years ago

Exactly. Keyboard and mouse? Desk? Software updates? Heaven forbid: Windows? PS5 on the couch is by far the better experience.

jwells892• 2 years ago

Particularly if you want to play with a controller (as is common for a living room/couch setup). Windows somehow has the worst controller support out of all operating systems (including mobile OSes) and if it weren't for Valve patching things up with Steam, it'd be almost unserviceable in that category.

bubblebeard• 2 years ago

Agreed. Whenever I want to play anything on my PC there is always some problem I have to deal with.

skadamat• 2 years ago

I used to have an Xbox Series X and a gaming Pc. I completely agree with this.

PC gaming usually means more freedom but also more responsibility:

- Windows wants to update random stuff all the time

- Other person can't hear me. 5 different software apps want to install their own audio mixer apps

- Game overlay bars - Steam, Epic Games, Windows, Nvidia, all have in-game overlay bars that have to be disabled

- Drivers, drivers, drivers

- Many others.

On the flip side, I wanted to game at 120 - 240 FPS and PC made this easier. For console games, you have to wait for the game developer to support 120 FPS mode and they never do more than 120 (because most people lack high refresh TV's / monitors anyway)

resource_waste3• 2 years ago

I'm the other way. Last time I turned on my xbox, the updates took so long, I got bored and forgot about it.

bee_rider2• 2 years ago

FWIW it is pretty close to the PS4 pro cost at release, adjusting for inflation.

Aissen• 2 years ago

I don't think so. PS4 Pro launch price was $400 in 2016. It would be at $525 this year. But then, the PS5 Pro is dropping the blu-ray disc reader, so add in $80 more. $780 != $525

aeturnum• 2 years ago

Consoles have always won on the "time investment :: game playing capability" metric. Sure, it's possible to be savvy with your time and money and build a PC that is better than a PS5 Pro for less money - but learning how to do that will take a lot of time and focus. If you already know how to do that it's a sunk cost and you probably already have a huge steam library anyway.

On the flip side, if you can't build such a machine now, you never have to invest any time in learning by just buying a console. Your money will get you a little less (because of the "console tax") but it's available right now.

pseudosavant• 2 years ago

I highly doubt you can build a PC that performs better in games than the PS5 Pro for $700. That is a very low price when a $300 RTX 4060 will be a slower GPU than what the PS5 Pro will have. Not to mention that consoles generally are more efficient, and have better visuals at a given compute level, than running games in a general-purpose OS.

sjnonweb2• 2 years ago

A similar performing 4070ti alone will cost $750, and thats just gpu. Including cpu, memory, storage it will be more than $1500.

throwaway17_17• 2 years ago

Where are you sourcing the comparison between the PS5 GPU and a 4070ti? The PS5 has 16 Gb of shared ram total and a 4070ti has 16 Gb for just the GPU. I don’t think the comparison is accurate and think that leads to an inflated value proposition in your comment. I have a PS5 and the percentage of games it can currently run at a solid 60 fps is a low percentage, but a 4070ti will consistently be at 60 fps for most cross platform games.

ciroduran• 2 years ago

You can get the best Steam Deck for a similar price

resource_waste3• 2 years ago

I think I spent $800 for a Asus with a 3060 last year. Thats 6gb vram, enough to do AI Art and local LLMs. And run every video game.

It comes with a screen, keyboard, and semi-functional OS(Win 11), but you can always install Fedora on it.

The PS5? The article didn't list the vram. It has some video games, unlike a general purpose laptop that has every computer. If you get access to LLMs or AI art, it is at Sony's will and I doubt they are paying the CUDA premium.

I think this is an education thing. Some low-information person just wants a gaming machine. They don't compare, they just go with something trustworthy where they can play fifa with their high school friends. I have a hard time thinking this is anything other than a failure in information. A more informed person would never this.

darknavi• 2 years ago

Was hoping for more backwards compatibility with older generations.

bilekas• 2 years ago

How were you expecting a new pro model to achieve that? The backwards compatibility library is being expanded but it's certainly not going to be a hardware bottleneck. The only hardware outcastnis the PS3 architecture and Sony will never touch that hardware ever again.

sergiotapia• 2 years ago

all of my games are discs when it comes to consoles. i will be forced to skip this, even ignoring the ludicrous price.

Yeul• 2 years ago

I think the next generation will completely dump disc drives. Sony probably knows better than anyone how Blu-ray is dying.

aquova• 2 years ago

They announced they're offering an $80 attachable drive, so it's an option, but adds to the ludicrous price

fsflover• 2 years ago

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41501580

roody15• 2 years ago

No disc drive... lame. pass.

sjnonweb2• 2 years ago

Disc drive can be attached

bqmjjx0kac2• 2 years ago

When I was growing up, I never imagined the dongle future we live in.

jl6• 2 years ago

Interesting that Sony considers a Blu-Ray drive to no longer be a key feature of the flagship console model. They’re probably not wrong, given the long slow decline in importance of optical media. Feels like the beginning of the end when even Blu-Ray’s primary creator is walking away.

marricks2• 2 years ago

Sony & MS aided in the decline of discs by making a disc drive an expensive add on and having every game need an online connection or day one update to fix bugs.

I'm sure they had a marketing plan of making $90 bucks off a $10 buck disc drive and then go "oh wow, look, only 30% of people spent an extra $100 bucks!"

dvdbloc• 2 years ago

It also enables them to effectively kill the used game market when you have to buy all games new through their store (or a code). You can’t even share a game with a friend, unless you share their whole account, which is way more friction.

rtkwe2• 2 years ago

They were also following consumer trends, digital purchases were already getting very popular before they introduced diskless versions of the consoles.

echelon• 2 years ago

They have sales data and probably analytics on actual usage. Even if the numbers aren't diminutive, they're likely looking to cut retail out of their margins.

I like physical media. A loud subset of gamers like physical media. But when you compare against Steam, it's clear what actually sells.

gs17• 2 years ago

But when you compare against Steam, it's clear what actually sells.

And not just "what actually sells", but also that digital games remove a lot of costs while consumers don't necessarily expect a discount.

There are a lot of people who wait for sales and bundles, but IMO that's more likely digital games being able to capture parts of the market that physical games struggled with rather than expecting a discount. I know I would definitely think a lot more before buying games if every title in my Steam library took up the space of even a disk.

jamespo2• 2 years ago

steam is not on a closed platform though... maybe the EU should look at the console gaming marketplaces

awiesenhofer• 2 years ago

I always wondered why both Sony and MS stuck with discs instead of ie. SDCards like Nintendo - with up to 1TB in size and faster speeds that seems to be a way better fit?

Snild• 2 years ago

Discs are super cheap to press, and word is that Switch games are significantly more expensive to manufacture: https://www.eurogamer.net/why-nintendo-switch-games-are-endi...

physicsguy3• 2 years ago

The pricing is totally wrong on this no matter the specs.

£700 in the U.K. is crazy

alias_neo3• 2 years ago

I have a PS5 Disc edition and play mostly physical games, so we're looking at what, at least £800 with a disc drive add-on? Insanity.

physicsguy3• 2 years ago

I just don’t really get the target…

If you’ve not bought a PS5 yet, I think at the price it’s not attractive.

If you have one, the next gen games aren’t pushing at the limits of the current hardware yet.

greenthrow2• 2 years ago

Anyone bemoaning the loss of the disc drive hasn't used a recent gen console with a disc drive. If you buy a game on disc you still have to install it to the internal storage because the disc drive is incredibly slow. But you also have the downside of having to swap the disc when you want to change games. It's completely pointless unless you have super slow internet speeds.

jahnu• 2 years ago

You can resell the disc.

greenthrow2• 2 years ago

I don't care about that vs the super slow install time and having to swap the disc to switch games. My time is worth more than $30. That's barely 2 fast food meals anymore.

slothtrop• 2 years ago

It's useful in one way: used game purchases, re-selling, and trading with friends.

Digital console purchases go on sale too but not (often) for the prices you'll sometimes see on Steam, Gamestop and elsewhere. You can't resell for a few bucks and lend to a friend. There are sometimes features to "play together" but that's it. In a market of $60-90 new games that makes a big difference.

Since consoles are glorified locked-down PCs at this point, and because server-side support eventually ends (which renders units useless for anything that isn't already installed), the market appeal may diminish in the face of an increasingly flexible PC market which has (basically) limitless backwards compatibility. Hardcore gamers this past decade have repurchased some titles multiple times, with PC usually being the last one. I expect Nintendo will take less of a hit from that than Sony/MSFT, though MSFT has its gamepass and leverages overreliance on Windows.

Sony is in a spot. There was speculation that it would style itself as the boutique/high-quality option. I don't think that would be enough, in the end consoles are both more affordable and approachable for average consumers, that is where most of the appeal lies.

tpl• 2 years ago

I use mine all the time to watch movies.

bqmjjx0kac2• 2 years ago

It's not pointless, the disc drive is necessary for a resale market.

I buy game discs on eBay for $30 instead of $70+ on the PlayStation store. And in theory I could also sell them for roughly the same amount when I'm done!

ado__dev• 2 years ago

The price point is a huge miss for me. I'll stick to the original PS5 for the time being.

faefox• 2 years ago

Consoles are pricing themselves out of relevance when you can buy a Steam Deck and have access to a vast library of (frequently heavily-discounted!) content for $399.

alephnerd• 2 years ago

Not all content owned by Sony or Microsoft ends up on Steam.

This is where consoles remain relevant.

talldayo2• 2 years ago

Pretty much the sole game worth buying a Sony console for (Bloodborne) is playable from end-to-end with PC emulation, even on Steam Deck: https://youtu.be/ItnC4GnHfa0

Especially for Sony, there simply aren't any worthwhile exclusive titles they're putting out. The good/big releases get published on PC now, and the obscure/fandom related stuff like Persona and Senran Kagura bled out of Sony platforms almost immediately. That leaves a small handful of games that can mostly be emulated on PC platforms. Unless your name is "Nintendo", you do not have the publishing power to make a console attractive to wealthy PC owners. Sony literally does not have titles with the same draw, anymore.

m3kw92• 2 years ago

The heck they charge almost double for a few more FPS?

diggan3• 2 years ago

Framerate seems about double or triple (from 30fps to 60/120fps), it has a new dedicated chip for AI upscaling and seemingly also adds more ray tracing capabilities.

Personally, won't make me pay double for a PS5, but I'm sure more than a few people care about these things.

Narishma2• 2 years ago

They also have double the storage among other things.

m3kw92• 2 years ago

I mean there isn’t really a truely next gen game yet, until GTA6 comes out maybe you may want this. All the games before it are more like upscaled ps4 games.

cloudrkt• 2 years ago

I bet it will sell like hotcakes with GTA6 coming out

diggan3• 2 years ago

Literally only reason I started looking at potentially (but most likely not) getting a PS5 is because Rockstar refuses to release PC versions together with console versions...

imbnwa4• 2 years ago

I'm honestly tempted for this very reason

antics9• 2 years ago

What's the point of owning a gaming console? You don´t really own the games anyway; as in being able to hand them over to a friend or sell them on a second market.

Why not just stream the gameplay through big mainframes like Nvidia GaForce Now and the likes?

jamespo2• 2 years ago

You can sell the discs? Admittedly the drive for this is an add on.

a962• 2 years ago

You can also loan, borrow, trade.. And you end up owning the media even when (not if) a network service is down. Even when the service is completely discontinued.

diggan3• 2 years ago

What's the point of owning a gaming console?

Plug-and-play entertainment. I thought this was kind of well known at this point?

You don´t really own the games anyway; as in being able to hand them over to a friend or sell them on a second market.

Isn't the same for most PC players who purchase games via Steam and Epic Store? You don't "own" those either. Most consoles at least has optional discs you could gift/sell on second hand market.

Why not just stream the gameplay through big mainframes like Nvidia GaForce Now and the likes?

Not everyone lives in places where there is 10ms latency to the closest data center. Streaming only works OK when bandwidth is high and latency is low, which is probably less common than you think.

edu• 2 years ago

But with the time to update game, it’s often plug-wait-and-play.

In this sense streaming games services are more plug and play, given what you say that you live in an area with good connectivity.

TiredOfLife2• 2 years ago

Not everyone lives in places where there is 10ms latency to the closest data center. Streaming only works OK when bandwidth is high and latency is low, which is probably less common than you think.

You don't need 10ms anything below 40 is good. I get 20ms being 500km from datacenter.

Jleagle• 2 years ago

You need a quick reaction time for lots of games, many people have high ping times because of their internet provider or rubbish wifi.

Ad for owning games, if you buy the game on disc, you can sell it, if you download it, you cant, that's on you.

TiredOfLife2• 2 years ago

You need a quick reaction time for lots of games, many people have high ping times because of their internet provider or rubbish wifi.

There are situations where streaming has lower latency than local console.

https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2022-geforce-now-rt...

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

[dupe]

Discussion on official announcement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41501580

gxd• 2 years ago

Cool!

I'd like to see now an even smaller PS5 - preferably as small as the XBOX S. I find the PS5 Slim still somewhat bulky, although it's no longer a major problem like the original.

zelifcam• 2 years ago

When can we stop pretending consoles are not computers and make things a tad easier on developers and consumers?

rtkwe2• 2 years ago

What does that look like to you?

Sony announces PS5 Pro, a $700 graphics workhorse available Nov. 7

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