Insider Claims Sony Prepping PlayStation 5 "Pro" Dev Kits for First Party Teams

[T0@st]

A couple of TPU readers will be happy to learn of more rumors relating to Sony's "in the works" PlayStation 5 Pro model - following on from last week's news about about a possible interim modular model - and curious commenters asking for additional information. Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson has been a notorious source of PS5-related leaks for a while - the aforementioned modular console variant has been leading topic for the guy and today he provides a small update on the matter: "You're probably already sick of hearing about the new PlayStation 5 with a detachable disc drive that should release later this year. Although reports have dubbed the new PlayStation 5 as the PS5 Slim, Insider Gaming understands that the console will be almost identical to the PlayStation 5 but feature a detachable disc drive. In fact, it's understood that the new PlayStation 5 will completely phase out the old design within a year."

His newly reformed and theorized PlayStation future timeline also contains an update about the PlayStation 5's "Pro" refresh - Sony is rumored to preparing this more powerful hardware variant for a Q4 2024 launch and Henderson insists that his past findings have been consistent and on point: "Our report in March was dismissed as being inaccurate by many when it was first reported and although the PlayStation 5 Pro could be canceled at any given time, Insider Gaming can report with a 100% degree of certainty that the PlayStation 5 Pro is currently in development." He claims that his industry sources have provided him with fresh batches of evidence: "Whilst we cannot report on any more specifics at this time, we understand that the first dev kit prototypes will be going to 1st party developers within the next couple of months, with 3rd party developers receiving them by the end of the year." Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are normally very guarded about development and prototype hardware, so very few developers (with access to these bits of kit) have been brave enough to break signed NDAs. Sony has once again chosen to be extremely secretive - no official information has been released about upcoming refreshed PS5 consoles or related accessories.



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[oxrufiioxo]

People can finally buy a PS5.... Time for a pro model....

 

[HisDivineOrder]

Color me skeptical. Imagine the cost of a Pro model and the previous Pro/Xbox One X were about bringing 4k(30) gaming to the masses. Would this be... 4k60? 1440p120?

I'd be more inclined to believe a new PS portable based on emulating the PS4 experience (given the Steam Deck is already doing this and has been for a year now) than Sony launching a refresh, complicating their lineup, and threatening to give developers a reason to be annoyed when right now they seem to be in a love affair with the PS5. Look at poor Xbox SeX and SeS not getting lots of games that come to every other platform. Why risk it for a relatively small audience?

Instead, they could just formalize their support for FSR2 (or dare I say 3?) officially in their devkit and upscale Quality from 1440p60 and get the same effect without new hardware at all. They basically did that with Checkerboard Rendering and the PS4 Pro, so it's not even a new idea.

 

[sepheronx]

Why not release games too?

Man this generation of gaming and consoles is bad.

 

[Space Lynx]

console gaming just doesn't interest me anymore, PC high refresh is where its at imo

 

[oxrufiioxo]

console gaming just doesn't interest me anymore, PC high refresh is where its at imo

The way pc gaming seems to be going to shite with all these terrible ports that take months for developers to fix pro consoles might be just what the doctored ordered for most.

Not to mention Nvidia/AMD raising prices like we are still in a pandemic.

120fps gaming without the BS.

Horizon Burning Shores already looks better than the majority of pc games as it is and plays better without the stutter struggle.

Glad at least D4 seems like it won't be a $h!+ show on pc.

 

[trsttte]

Color me skeptical. Imagine the cost of a Pro model and the previous Pro/Xbox One X were about bringing 4k(30) gaming to the masses. Would this be... 4k60? 1440p120?

I'm not as pessimistic, the regular PS5 is still expensive because they're taking a page out of nintendo's book and just enjoying the extra profits, if and while the demand is there why decrease prices right? With a node upgrade plus zen4 and rdna3 or even rdna4 they could easily get a good uplift that would eliminate the need for separate performance and visual modes.

I think a bigger question is if there will be a market for it, 8k is a meme and the regular ps5 already runs 4k60 (upscaled, whatever, still looks pretty good) so I don't know how much demand there will be. And as you point out, developers have not liked the Xbox tiered approach at all and Sony would be opening themselves to the same problem, though the higher platform maturity by only introducing the second tier mid cycle might help alleviate that

Why not release games too?

Man this generation of gaming and consoles is bad.

I blame the pandemic and crypto for that, the way they disrupted supply and demand for example. Consoles got a higher boost in sales right at the start and didn't have to go as hard releasing games to promote the platforms, that's my uninformed feeling at least.

 

[chrcoluk]

If it wasnt for BC I think these consoles would have been a failure, I feel the game library is shrinking every gen.

The PS5 is huge and bulky, I would have preffered if they just came up with the detachable optical drive idea and a slimmer console, Because if this comes out PS5 will become the forgotten child.

 

[sepheronx]

If it wasnt for BC I think these consoles would have been a failure, I feel the game library is shrinking every gen.

The PS5 is huge and bulky, I would have preffered if they just came up with the detachable optical drive idea and a slimmer console, Because if this comes out PS5 will become the forgotten child.

The other major problem is overbloated movie games. I think even CDPR said that big time movie games of long development time and overbloated budget isn't sustainable anymore. I hope it's true too.

 

[chrcoluk]

The other major problem is overbloated movie games. I think even CDPR said that big time movie games of long development time and overbloated budget isn't sustainable anymore. I hope it's true too.

FF13 would perhaps be put in the movie game category, it was (by jrpg standards) expensive to make, had a long dev time, and then underwhelming sales with mediocre feedback. They then made 2 budget sequels which ended up being good games in their own right for a fraction of the cost.

FF13 had lots of flashy FMV's, but to cut costs in FF13-2, cutscenes became live rendered with generic movements (was a few limited FMV but thats it), LR the third sequel inherited that,

However if you mean a game been a story that you play out, these tend to be my favourite games, but they dont have to be expensive to produce, I think a huge part of cost goes on marketing and visuals. A story can be told in low budget.

I certainly would prefer say 3 low budget games vs one big budget blockbuster.

Tales game are perhaps a good example of story driven games been done on a budget. They tend to have animated style graphics which are cheaper to create as well.

Then you have games where huge licensing fees have to be covered which would be the case with the star wars games.