PS5 Pro: Enhanced Gaming Experience with Upgraded Hardware and Game Support

PS5 Pro will significantly enhance PSVR 2 games according to Mark Cerny

PSVR 2 owners will be in good hands with the PS5 Pro it seems, as was confirmed by Sony's Mark Cerny. Chatting to Cnet, the PS5 Pro's lead system architect confirmed that because of the mid-gen console's improved GPU, PSVR 2 games should benefit greatly. Cerny specifically outlines improvements to resolution and the use of "Sony's AI upscaling that will work with all VR games." Presumably, this means that PS5 Pro's bespoke PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (or PSSR for short) as outlined in the PS5 Pro specs will play a part here. Cerny didn't mention any specific PSVR 2 games here or during the PS5 Pro Technical Presentation, though it's easy to imagine marquee titles like Horizon: Call of the Mountain, Gran Turismo 7, and Resident Evil 4 VR all benefiting from the upgraded console. It's something of a relief to see that PSVR 2 hasn't been forgotten in the PS5 Pro mix. And rightly so; that's a $549 / £529 VR headset and what's about to be a $699.99 / £699.99 console. If I'm investing that much into the PlayStation 5 ecosystem, I'd hope that all the devices benefit each other when it comes to performance improvements. As for the PSVR 2 specs, the headset supports a per-panel resolution of 2,000 x 2,040. Could PS5 Pro's AI-powered upscaling boost that closer to 4K? That remains to be seen, but definitely seems doable given the console's substantial leap in power. PS5 Pro launches on November 7, with PS5 Pro pre-orders opening up on September 26. You'll be able to place one most reliably at PlayStation Direct, but it's likely there will be stock at other big box retailers too.

All confirmed PS5 Pro enhanced games coming to the new Sony console

It's official: the PS5 Pro is on the way, and with it, a host of PS5 Pro enhanced games. The latest edition of the flagship console offers a stunning graphical overhaul, upgrading how players will experience some of the best PS5 games around. In its recent tech demo, Sony has finally given us a closer glimpse of what its long-awaited PS5 rework will look, feel, and play like come its November 7 launch date. With PS5 Pro pre-orders now live, you might be wondering which of your favorite games are expected to receive a pro glow-up. The eye-watering $700 price tag might sound steep, but there's a reason why Sony thinks the PS5 Pro is "the most visually impressive way to play games on PlayStation," according to PlayStation Blog. We'll get into the nitty gritty of what exactly PS5 Pro does to make your games look so much better below, but first, here's a quick look at all the PS5 Pro enhanced games we currently know about. The PS5 Pro will feature an upgraded GPU with faster memory and rendering, meaning we can expect to see the games we play on the console run a lot smoother than the standard PS5, with higher fidelity and boosted framerates. As the reveal trailer showcases, the new hardware will also support more powerful ray-tracing for "dynamic reflection and refraction" to make the lighting even more realistic and enhanced in game worlds, along with upscaling driven by AI to make the images you can see even sharper. For a more in-depth look at how the enhancements compare between consoles, we have a full rundown of the PS5 vs PS5 specs.

PS5 Pro upgrade patches for "around 40 or 50 games" at launch this November

Fresh off its PlayStation 5 Pro reveal, Sony has reportedly confirmed "around 40 or 50 or games" will get PS5 Pro upgrade patches when the souped-up console launches on 7th November. That nugget of information comes via a report from CNET, which chatted with PlayStation's lead system architect Mark Cerny ahead of today's PS5 Pro reveal. So far, Sony has only officially named 13 games set to recieve PS5 Pro upgrades on launch day, meaning there's still plenty more to be shared. Those game, incidentally, are as follows: Some of those freshly enhanced titles got an airing during today's PS5 Pro reveal, with announced upgrades ranging from a fidelity mode frame rate boost from 30fps to 60fps for numerous titles - including The Last of Us Part 2, Marvel's Spider-man 2, and Ratchet & clank: Rift Apart - alongside more substantial enhancements elsewhere. Gran Turismo 7, for instance, will gain raytracing reflections between cars during gameplay on PS5 Pro, all while still targeting 60fps, and Horizon Forbidden West is getting an upgrade wtih improvements to lighting and visual effects, as well as enhanced hair and skin in cinematics. One game not mentioned in Sony's annoucement but shown to CNET during its demo is EA's F1 24, which will reportedly also recieve new ray tracing effects during races. Notably, however, Sony is yet to announce enhancements for any of its PSVR 2 titles, which is unlikely to instil confidence in fans worried about what feels like an increasingly neglected platform. But Mark Cerny did at least note to CNET that higher-resolution games will be possible on PSVR 2 thanks to PS5 Pro's GPU boost and owners can "eventually" expect a "tuning of Sony's AI upscaling that will work with all VR games". The digital-only PS5 Pro launches on 7th November and will cost £699.99/$699.99. It'll include 2TB SSD, a DualSense wireless controller and - just like the PS5 - a copy of Astro's Playroom pre-installed. A vertical stand will be sold separately for £24.99, and the console is compatible with Sony's £99.99 disc drive add-on.

PS5 Pro games list, including all confirmed first and third-party upgrades

Thanks to a Digital Foundry pre-release specs deep dive, we have a good idea of what this all means in practice. For example, don't expect every game to now offer 60 frames per second with the PS5 Pro's specs, as the CPU / processing speed upgrade is at a rather modest 10% (compared to the PS4 Pro's 33% increase over the base PS4), suggesting we can expect additional stability than significantly higher frame-rates. However, the graphics boost appears significant on paper, going from 10.23 teraflops to 33.5 (though in real terms, this could be closer to a 45% bump), while ray tracing will be twice to three times as fast as a standard PS5. Meanwhile, the bespoke upscaler (named PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution) that uses AI machine learning can help reach higher resolutions. Finally, though a 1.2GB increase in memory is also coming, it sounds like that'll be eaten up by the aforementioned ray tracing and upscaler tech.