Mohamed Hassan 
Sony openly admitted that 2024 is a transition year for the PlayStation 5 when it comes to games, but could that open the door for a PS5 Pro? Analysts broke it down.
The existence of a PS5 Pro has been a subject of fervent speculation for some time now. With Microsoft confirming a new piece of Xbox hardware and a new Nintendo console on the way. It’s easy to imagine Sony making a power play and asserting its dominance in the market with some new tech of its own.
A PS5 Pro with enhanced features could reignite interest in the PlayStation 5 at a time when Sony expects console sales to decline from April 2024. It could also precede the release of Grand Theft Auto 6 in 2025, a highly anticipated title that will likely be the biggest console seller of the generation. PS5 Pro devkits are reportedly already in the hands of third-party developers but is the console actually coming out, and if so, when? Analysts discussed the matter with CNBC.
Is the PS5 Pro coming out in 2024?
Analysts predict that a PS5 Pro console is coming out in 2024, possibly ahead of the holiday season. The latest to give this take is Serkan Toto, CEO of Tokyo’s games consultancy Kantan Games, told CNBC.
“There seems to be a broad consensus in the game industry that Sony is indeed preparing a launch of a PS5 Pro in the second half of 2024…And Sony will want to make sure to have a great piece of hardware ready when GTA 6 hits in 2025, a launch that will be a shot in the arm for the entire gaming industry,” Toto said.
While gamers have questioned the need for a PS5 Pro, players who enable ray-tracing will likely feel an immediate impact from doing so, even in manageable games like Elden Ring. Questions have also been raised cost of this new console, and according to the latest reports and information on the state of semiconductors, the future is not looking too good for gamers.
How strong is the PS5 Pro?
The PS5 Pro is estimated to have around 23 teraflops and 3.6 GHz processing power.
Youtuber Paul Eccleston of RedGamingTech has heard from his sources that the PS5 Pro will pack in 23 teraflops, which is significantly more than the PS5’s 10.28 Tflops and the 12 Tflops found in the Xbox Series X. He has also heard that the new console’s CPU could reach speeds “well over 3.6 GHZ.”
The GPU will reportedly be clocked at 2.7 GHz, which is considerably higher than the current 2.2 GHZ graphics processor of the PS5. Machine learning upscaling techniques are also advancing rapidly and Microsoft’s leaked internal documents suggest that including dedicated hardware for this function will be the norm in the future.
Gamers may have to pay significantly more to upgrade and get these specs. Sony COO Hiroki Totoki indicated that the internal components for the PS5 are rising in price as the generation goes on. Hardware analyst Kepler added that the cost of producing transistors will only increase as things go on and that future consoles will either have “increasingly smaller performance gains or significantly higher prices.”
What this means for gamers in the long-term is unclear but in the short-term, all signs point to a PS5 Pro coming out in 2024 or 2025.
