Releasing PS5 Pro would be a betrayal of PlayStation fans – Reader’s Feature

I found myself nodding in agreement with much that was written in last week’s feature on the worries and concerns of being a PlayStation 5 owner at the moment. Like everyone else, I’m mystified as to what Sony is doing with the lack of game announcements, which seems even more perverse given they can’t stop releasing new hardware.

A lot of it is just rumours but considering those same rumours got the Project Q right, which nobody could’ve guessed at, predicting a PS5 Slim and PS5 Pro is not exactly much of a leap. I’m sure the talk of a PS5 Pro is correct – the original sold well, it’s money on the table for Sony… why wouldn’t they make one?

Well, how about the simple fact that nobody can afford it, none of what it does seems to be important, and it’s another pointless distraction, just like the PlayStation VR2, that is stopping developers from getting on with the business of just making games, at a time when no new games are getting made or released.

I know what you’re thinking: the people that make the hardware are not the same ones as make the games. That’s true but the execs and marketing people are the same, and while their attention is on a mid-generation console upgrade it’s not on games. More importantly, the actual rumours clearly state that Sony has been demoing the PS5 Pro to developers and that devkits are already being sent out.

That is definitely a distraction. Having to learn a new system, working out what it can do and its limitations, and then changing what you were working on to take advantage of it. It’s absolutely not what Sony needs at the moment but, again like the PlayStation VR2, I’m sure they’re going to plough ahead with it anyway.

And for why? 8K is a joke. Hardly anyone’s got a TV that can run it and even when you can it is physically impossible to tell the difference between it and 4K unless the TV is the size of a house. It’s the ultimate form of ‘bigger numbers mean it’s better’.

Speaking of which, the only thing that might vaguely be useful is consistent 60fps, but I bet there’ll be plenty of games that still don’t have it and even if they do the benefits of 60fps, outside of straight action games, has been greatly exaggerated – again just because it’s a bigger number you can use to try and win arguments with.

Also, 2024 is not the middle of the generation. The PlayStation 5 might have come out in 2020 but the generation didn’t get off the ground until at least 2022, and there’s still only a couple of proper PlayStation 5 exclusives.

The PS5 Pro is not needed, and I see it as a betrayal of fans who have shelled out for the original version and are now being tempted into buying the new model, despite there still not being anything new to play on it. Sony’s priorities are completely shot to hell and the PS5 Pro is going to be an additional kick in the teeth that I would very much advise them against.

By reader Grackle

The reader’s feature does not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.