PS5 Pro Is Going To Change The Future Of Console Gaming

PS5 Pro is set to launch this week and most people seem pretty apathetic about it. Not that it surprises me. When the $699 console was announced – with the grim fact that it doesn’t even give you a disc drive out of the box – people were justifiably disgusted. It is a cash grab by Sony to prolong a console generation which hasn’t justified its existence in the first place.

But, because I’m both a person who writes about video games for a living and an utter fool, I pre-ordered one anyway. And the gradual drip feed of information recently from places like Digital Foundry and a steady arrival of new patch notes has me excited about playing games I have already finished, and a decent handful I haven’t. PS5 Pro is going to remove a barrier to my enjoyment that I’ve written about before, but more than some might realise, it’s introducing us to a feature that will no doubt define the future of console gaming.

PS5 Pro Makes PS4 Games Look Better, And That’s Neat

One PS5 Pro feature that was buried within an overlong PlayStation Blog after its reveal was the ‘Game Boost’ feature, which is poised to support over 8,500 titles by increasing resolution and image quality natively. Exactly how extensive this feature is and whether it will make any meaningful difference remains to be seen, but now we have our first example of it in action.

This past weekend saw a user on Twitter share a comparison of Bloodborne running on the PS5 and PS5 Pro, with the Pro appearing somewhat sharper and more defined.

The change is pretty subtle, all things considered, but I expected it to be. Instead of issuing a patch – and that would be lovely, don’t get me wrong – PS5 Pro seems to instead use AI to upscale titles we already own so they better resemble a native 4K image. Or at the very least, go beyond their 1080p origins. It’s a shame that performance doesn’t follow suit, or whether this will be supported in the future. If it is, entire libraries could be transformed.

Considering we are now staring down the barrel of a digital future where we purchase silly licences for video games rather than owning them outright, at least work is being put in on the technology side to keep things both presentable and playable. Bloodborne is almost a decade old at this point and has always suffered from just-about-okay performance and frame pacing, and now, at the very least, it looks better.

Much like the PS4 Pro, I think my excitement for this new console comes from what it can retroactively do to older games, rather than improving my experience with new ones. It’s like how the Switch OLED changed my perspective on portable gaming because it looks so substantially better that going back now feels impossible.

If the same can be done to other games from past generations, including those on PS1, PS2, PSP, and PS3, it’s the best future we can hope for in a world where native hardware and physical copies are becoming so damn rare. But this also speaks to another, more prominent feature of the PS5 Pro, and one that will no doubt have the biggest impact: PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution. God, what a ridiculous name.

PSSR Is Going To Change Console Gaming Forever

One of the big selling points of the PS5 Pro is eradicating the middle man that is having to pick between Graphics and Performance modes in modern video games. This has been normal for almost a decade now, as triple-A blockbusters are forced to make concessions to reach 4K resolution or achieve a high framerate. You can’t do both, at least not with the power of modern hardware, so the PS5 Pro is a very expensive solution to that problem.

PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) is part of how this is achieved by using AI upscaling to provide sharper image quality and visuals without sacrificing performance. It also gets bolstered by more powerful hardware on the base level, but this intends to take it further. PC gaming has been using this technology for years with DLSS, which also allows you to achieve much higher performance and image quality than your machine will ever be capable of on its own. It feels like magic, and in practice, looks like it too.

I’m honestly more curious to see how PS5 Pro will improve image quality for some of its PSVR 2 titles, since those would benefit most from such a drastic improvement.

AI-driven upscaling combined with more powerful hardware is likely to become common in the years to come, especially for PlayStation and Xbox as they strive to make games run or look better while keeping costs down. The technology is primitive on consoles right now, so PlayStation is smart enough to spearhead its implementation and get a head start long before others come knocking. I’d be shocked if Microsoft didn’t include something similar in its upcoming consoles, or is now kicking itself for letting Sony beat it to the punch.

Unfortunately for us, triple-A gaming remains in a place where corporations are chasing old trends and live services in favour of profits, while single-player blockbusters take too long or cost too much to make. So much so that we will eventually hit an unsustainable breaking point. PS5 Pro has to be aware of that conservation and should serve to make the lives of developers a bit easier.

With PSSR doing some of the legwork regarding optimisation, hopefully it’ll make things smoother. We’ll definitely be seeing the differences as consumers, and if it proves to have enough impact even with just hardcore enthusiasts picking up PS5 Pro, that’ll be enough.