Sony has announced that the PlayStation 5 Pro will receive the full version of AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 upscaling technology in 2026. This upgrade delivers the exact same engine that PC users have accessed since its March release, replacing the current PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) system without any reduction in functionality. Coming from Project Amethyst, the update is a collaborative effort between Sony and AMD, launched alongside the PS5 Pro's late 2024 debut. In a recent interview, PlayStation lead system architect Mark Cerny confirmed that the jointly developed algorithm will be implemented on the console exactly as it appears on PC. They are providing the full feature set of FSR 4 to PS5 Pro owners, without any trimmings.

AMD introduced Sony to its comprehensive quality‑assurance practices and helped establish a dedicated QA team focused solely on upscaling performance. Participants from both companies credit this reciprocal exchange with accelerating development, achieving significant milestones in under nine months. Sony plans to distribute the FSR 4 upgrade as a free system update to all PS5 Pro users. Meanwhile, AMD will integrate lessons learned from Project Amethyst into its next RDNA 5/UDNA graphics architecture. Because neither company placed usage restrictions on the shared research, third‑party developers and hardware partners can also adopt these advancements. For PS5 Pro owners, the upgrade will provide a noticeable improvement in image clarity without compromising performance. For next-generation RDNA 5/UDNA GPUs, upscaling optimizations will be even more fine-tuned, as developers have already done the same work for the console.

A month ago, Sony increased its PlayStation 5 home console prices for EMEA and ANZ regions—affecting customers in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. At the time, industry experts surmised that company leadership was considering a similar strategy for a primary market: North America. Instead of freshly implemented 25% upward hikes for certain products/packages, reports suggested a 30% climb—for the North American market. Weeks later, company leadership has discussed this hot topic. During yesterday's (projected) earnings call with investors, top brass confirmed their consideration of "passing along" additional costs to consumers—in response to a reported/anticipated 100 billion yen (~$680 million) impact from US tariffs. They outlined a stockpile of PS5 consoles; enough units have been accumulated for roughly three months of supply—unaffected by adjusted conditions, in the States.

Despite this provision, Hiroki Totoki—Sony's president/CEO—is open to exploring alternative production avenues, in the face of looming extra charges. When asked about this matter, he replied with: "hardware can of course be produced locally, I think that would be an efficient strategy. PS5 is being manufactured in many areas, whether it is going to be manufactured in the US or not—it needs to be considered going forward." In efforts to navigate a trying situation, Nintendo has juggled its geographic manufacturing footprint—recent-ish developments have shifted away from a complete reliance on Chinese facilities. Industry insiders reckon that the bulk of US-bound Switch 2 units will be Vietnamese-made. Like Sony, Nintendo's executive team has publicly disclosed thoughts about future price hikes—maybe following the launch of its much-anticipated "next-gen" hybrid console. Earlier this month, Microsoft upped modern Xbox portfolio price tags—affecting customers across the world.

Keep the supplies moving with the latest piece of hardware for Porters heading out on a new journey - we're excited to reveal the new DualSense wireless controller - Death Stranding 2: On the Beach Limited Edition. We worked closely with Kojima Productions on the controller design, customized with the insignia and motto of Drawbridge in vibrant orange. The DualSense wireless controller—Death Stranding 2: On the Beach Limited Edition will be available in limited quantities for a recommended retail price of $84.99 / €84.99 / £74.99 / ¥12,480. Pre-orders start on May 22, 2025, at 10am local time at direct.playstation.com (where available), as well as participating retailers. The exact launch date and availability for the controller may vary by country/region.

The new controller launches on June 26, 2025 on PS5 alongside Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, where players can join Sam and his companions on a mission to save humanity from extinction. Pre-order the Collector's Edition or Digital Deluxe Edition for Early Access from June 24, 2025.

PlayStation 5 Pro console—the most innovative PlayStation console to date—elevates gaming experiences to the next level with features like upgraded GPU, advanced ray tracing, and PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) - an AI-driven upscaling that delivers super sharp image clarity with high framerate gameplay. Today we're providing a closer look at the console's internal architecture, as Sony Interactive Entertainment engineers Shinya Tsuchida, PS5 Pro Mechanical Design Lead and Shinya Hiromitsu, PS5 Pro Electrical Design Lead, provide a deep-dive into the console's innovative technology and design philosophy.

Note: in this article, we refer to the PlayStation 5 model released in 2020 as the "original PS5," the PS5 released in 2023 as the "current PS5," and the PS5 Pro released in 2024 as the "PS5 Pro." Do not try this at home. Risk of fires, and exposure to electric shock or other injuries. Disassembling your console will invalidate your manufacturer's guarantee.

Welcome—or welcome back—to Days Gone, Bend Studio's sprawling open-world adventure-survival epic. In this PlayStation 5/PC remaster launching April 25, you'll once again be able to enjoy Deacon St. John's journey across the gorgeous natural beauty of the Oregon wilderness-provided you can deal with the mind-boggling amount of mutant Freaker monstrosities that want to shred you into tiny little chunks. We reached out to Kevin McAllister, Creative and Product Lead at Bend Studio, for some additional details about the anticipated remaster, including its notable new additions. So grab your survival gear, gas up your bike, and read on to hear about how Days Gone is better than ever on the PlayStation 5 (and PC).

Back in the days
We first asked how Bend Studio feels about revisiting their flagship game: "Days Gone is a special game for us," says McAllister. "It's a special game to our players, too. We got the opportunity to remaster a game that we released originally on the PS4 in 2019 and ported to the PC in 2021. Six years after the original, technology has improved-we have the power of the PS5 now. There was a lot more we could do to showcase the game's potential." We then asked about how the PlayStation 5's capabilities are enhancing the Days Gone experience. "The graphical improvements we've made-you'll see the difference," McAllister explains. "There's increased lighting, increased shadow quality, increased fog depth. For example, nighttime is now darker; the moon is more natural-looking. The blue sky is more natural, too-Days Gone is a very realistic-looking game. And we've taken that to a new level with the PS5." Sounds like a great fit for the remaster's new-and-improved Photo Mode, with more lighting options and instant day-and-night switches for beautiful environmental photography.

Sony has confirmed plans to implement an advanced AI upscaling solution for PlayStation 5 Pro in 2026, based on AMD's newly released FSR 4 technology. PlayStation lead architect Mark Cerny revealed to EuroGamer that the next evolution of PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) will leverage the neural network architecture co-developed with AMD through Project Amethyst. "Our target is to have something very similar to FSR 4's upscaler available on PS5 Pro for 2026 titles as the next evolution of PSSR," Cerny stated. This implementation aims to maintain compatibility with existing frameworks while delivering significantly enhanced image quality. The collaborative initiative between Sony and AMD, which began in late 2023, has already yielded measurable results. FSR 4 represents the first tangible output from Project Amethyst, with Cerny noting that the technology "can exceed the crispness of PSSR" currently deployed on PS5 Pro hardware.

Sony's PS5 Pro features custom ML hardware delivering 300 8-bit TOPS of computing power without sparsity, which Cerny believes will be sufficient to handle the computational demands of the new upscaling algorithm. While the reimplementation process is described as "ambitious and time-consuming," the underlying architecture appears capable of supporting the technology without significant modifications. For 2025, Sony's priority remains to encourage developers to integrate the current PSSR technology into their titles while the enhanced version undergoes development. Cerny indicated that console-specific optimizations will be necessary, as "technical targets for console game development and PC game development tend to be slightly different," particularly regarding frame rate consistency. Project Amethyst extends beyond upscaling technology, with indications that ray tracing enhancements may also be part of the collaboration. The partnership aims to establish a hardware architecture optimized for machine learning in graphics processing, giving us a hint of what the future hardware will be like.

Hideo Kojima took to the stage at SXSW yesterday and—joined by some special guests—discussed new details about Kojima Productions' Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. Those details included the reveal of the game's release date: June 26, 2025. To mark the announcement - and pre-orders going live March 17—attendees enjoyed a first look at a special Kojima-directed Pre-Order trailer, which you can watch in full below.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach will launch in a range of different versions. This includes a Collector's Edition, which will be available to pre-order directly from PlayStation and select retailers worldwide. Details on the different versions you can find here.

Forza Horizon 5 is getting one of its biggest updates! This April, the Horizon Festival evolves with Horizon Realms. This brand-new feature will let players dig into Forza Horizon 5's history of Evolving World updates. Explore 12 fantastic Evolving World locations: 11 of the best previously limited-time locations and the premiering Stadium Track. Collect new Horizon Realms-exclusive accolades to unlock four new-to-Horizon reward cars. Revisit your favorite environments, or discover them for the first time, in Horizon Realms available for every platform on April 25!

Pre-order Forza Horizon 5 on PlayStation 5 Today!
Forza Horizon 5 is now available for pre-order ahead of its PS5 release on April 29! Visit the PlayStation Store to pre-purchase one of Forza Horizon 5's different editions. Standard Edition comes with the complete base game and its free content and features like Horizon Realms. Get access to an extra 42 cars added with Car Pass by purchasing the Deluxe Edition of Forza Horizon 5. Upgrade your adventure to the fullest with the Premium Edition. This edition comes with both Forza Horizon 5 expansions (Rally Adventure and Hot Wheels), 42 additional cars from Car Pass, VIP Membership, and extra perks that are included in the Welcome Pack.

Hello everyone, I'm Yonghe Wang—Creative Director at Pollard Studios, I am very excited to announce on behalf of my team and our publisher Wired Productions that Karma: The Dark World will be launching on PC, PlayStation, XBOX, and Nintendo Switch on March 27. The game will also support PS5 Pro enhancements. To celebrate, we thought we would share a breakdown of how the team is making the most of the PS5 Pro features to enhance the games visuals and performance—and to share the second in a trilogy of trailers—showcasing some of the surreal environments and characters in the game hinting at their relationship to you - the player. Please Enjoy!

What Is Karma: The Dark World?
Karma: The Dark World is a first-person cinematic psychological thriller which takes place in a cassette future alternate timeline set after World War II. In our game, a company known as Leviathan obtained unfathomable technology that allowed them to wrestle Eastern Germany under their control, installing a regime that oppresses the citizens and places productivity and obedience as gospel.

State of Play is back tomorrow, February 12! Tune in live for news and updates on great games coming to PS5. The show celebrates a creative and unique selection of exciting games from studios around the world. The 40+ minute show begins February 12 at 2pm PT / 5pm ET | 11pm CET / February 13 at 7am JST on YouTube and Twitch, and will be broadcast in English and Japanese. See you tomorrow!

Regarding co-streaming and video-on-demand (VOD)
Please note that this broadcast may include copyrighted content (e.g. licensed music) that PlayStation does not control. We welcome and celebrate our amazing co-streamers and creators, but licensing agreements outside our control could interfere with co-streams or VOD archives of this broadcast. If you're planning to save this broadcast as a VOD to create recap videos, or to repost clips or segments from the show, we advise omitting any copyrighted music.

Rebellion, one of the world's most successful independent video game developers and publishers, has today launched Sniper Elite: Resistance, the latest instalment in the genre defining franchise. Sniper Elite: Resistance is available to play now on Game Pass, and available for purchase, both digitally and physically (with the boxed edition published by Fireshine Games) on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5 Pro, PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4, Windows PC and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store.

As well as the Standard Edition, Sniper Elite: Resistance is also available in a Deluxe Edition, which will include additional Season Pass content. The game has been enhanced for the PlayStation Pro 5, offering players the chance to experience the game in full 4K resolution.

FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH, winner of over 40 Game of the Year awards globally, is now available worldwide on PC via Steam and Epic Games Store. The award-winning RPG is also available now on the PlayStation 5 (PS5) console, with enhanced support for the PlayStation 5 Pro. Heralded as "the best Final Fantasy of the century" by The Washington Post and recipient of over 110 perfect review scores, FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH comes to the PC platform with a variety of new features and customizations that deliver a new level of realism and immersion to the unknown journey including:

• Improved lighting across the entire game renders the adventure with even greater beauty and clarity.
• 4K resolution and 120 FPS are supported on top-spec PCs.
• Greater polygon and texture density can be achieved through optional settings. FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH has never looked better.
• With DualSense controller support, enjoy the same controls and immersive haptic feedback as on the PS5 console.
• NVIDIA DLSS allows for upscaled image quality and enhanced framerates.
• Variable refresh rate (VRR) enables smoother gameplay with compatible hardware.
• Full control rebinding, plus mouse and keyboard support. Freely customize controls between world exploration and combat or mini-games.
• FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH is Steam Deck Verified for an optimized handheld experience.

Noted technology tipster, Kepler L2, believes that the Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) engineering team has finalized the design of a PlayStation 6 (PS6) system-on-chip (SoC)—insider information was shared on the NeoGAF forum (a popular computer game discussion board) late last week. It would be natural to assume that Sony's gaming division is deep into the process of developing a follow-up to its PlayStation 5 home console, but Kepler L2's fresh revelation points to surprisingly advanced progress. Insider sources point to the PS6's chip design being: "complete and in pre-silicon validation already, with A0 tapeout scheduled for late this year."

Industry experts have analyzed PlayStation development cycles of days past—history has demonstrated a pattern of the A0 tapeout phase reaching completion around two years before the rollout of finalized products at retail. Kepler L2 reckons that this pattern will be repeated—indicating a possible launch of PlayStation by 2027. The rumored PS6 chipset has been linked to AMD's "gfx13" target—everyone's favorite Team Red tipster posits that Sony engineers are working with a "fork" of this next-gen "UDNA" graphics technology. The rumor mill has generated additional PS6 SoC-related internet chatter—last Friday, Chiphell alleged a possible adoption of Team Red's X3 V-cache technology.

Today, Sony Interactive Entertainment expands the PlayStation 5 (PS5) family of products with the release of the new PlayStation 5 Pro (PS5 Pro) console - the company's most advanced and innovative gaming console to date. PlayStation 5 Pro was designed with deeply engaged players and game creators in mind and includes key performance features that allow games to run with higher fidelity graphics at smoother frame rates.

"With PlayStation 5 Pro, we wanted to make sure that the most dedicated gamers, as well as game creators, could utilize the most advanced console technology, taking the PlayStation 5 experience even farther," said Hideaki Nishino, CEO Platform Business Group, Sony Interactive Entertainment. "This is our most advanced PlayStation to date, and it gives our community of players the opportunity to experience games the way that developers intended for them to be. Players will be thrilled with how this console enhances some of their favorite titles, while opening avenues to discover new ones."

Many gamers have been skeptical of the recently announced Sony PS5 Pro since the day it was announced, largely due to the high price and the perceived lack of meaningful improvements. It seemed to many as though the PS5 Pro was simply a meaningless mid-cycle cash-grab with a few extra features tacked onto the top, however, it looks like Sony and its development partners have put in the work to make the PS5 Pro experience fresh and worthwhile. According to a new post on the official PlayStation Blog, the new console will launch with at least 50 confirmed "Enhanced" games.

What exactly Sony means by Enhanced is rather nebulous, since many of the Enhanced games for the PS5 Pro have a mishmash of different Pro features. For example, Resident Evil Village gets the full 120 FPS treatment, while Horizon Forbidden West only gets a bump up to 4K at 60 FPS. Stellar Blade, on the other hand, only gets an FPS boost to 80 FPS or 50 FPS at 4K. It's likely that, like Stellar Blade, all the titles aiming for higher refresh rates on the PS5 Pro are using some mix of PSSR, dedicated AI acceleration, and traditional rasterization rendering techniques to achieve the increased frame rates. Both The Last of Us Part I and The Last of Us II Remastered will run at 60 FPS on the PS5 Pro, but they will render at 1440p and use PSSR to upscale to 4K output.

Electronic Arts Inc. and BioWare announced today that Dragon Age: The Veilguard is now available for PlayStation 5 (also enhanced for PS5 Pro), Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam (Steam Deck Verified), EA app and Epic Games Store. This bold, heroic adventure is built to deliver on what the series is best known for: rich storytelling, fantasy worldbuilding, companions & fellowship, and a world where you matter. The next installment in BioWare's beloved franchise has captivated critics worldwide, with outlets such as IGN and GamesRadar+ proclaiming it "deserves its place in the RPG pantheon" and is "A true return to RPG form for BioWare" in their 9/10 and 4.5/5 reviews.

In Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Solas, the Dread Wolf, wants to tear down the Veil that separates Thedas from the world of demons, restoring his people's immortality and glory - even at the cost of countless lives. But his ritual goes awry, and his worst fears are realized, as two of his most ancient and powerful adversaries are released. Players will step into the role of Rook, a fully-customizable protagonist who must rise up and unite their companions to stop these two powerful deities on a journey that will span across Thedas' bustling cities, lush tropics, boreal forests, fettered swamps and deepest depths.

As we continue our celebrations leading up to the 30th anniversary of the first PlayStation console launch, we have a special treat to reveal today that brings the past together with the present. Introducing our PlayStation 30th Anniversary Collection to celebrate this wonderful milestone.

The new limited edition designs pay homage to 30 wonderful years of gaming, a journey made possible by the passion and support of our fans and talented game developers. Reminiscent of the very first PlayStation console to launch on December 3, 1994, this limited edition offering utilizes the original PlayStation color design and integrates it into the latest line of PS5 hardware products.

The $699.99 MSRP of the Sony PlayStation 5 Pro is a source of outrage on social media, but what if we told you that the new premium console is in fact cheaper than what the PlayStation 3 cost at launch for even its cheapest variant? Sony launched the PlayStation 3 in 2006, with its cheapest variant that came with a 20 GB hard drive, at $499, in the US. A premium variant with a 60 GB HDD cost $599. Both models included a Blu-ray drive, as physical media was the prevalent mode of game distribution. In comes inflation. $599 in 2006 money is approximately $930 in today's money, while $499 (2006) in today's money is approximately $780.

Even the cheapest variant of the PlayStation 3 cost 11% more at launch than the PlayStation 5 Pro, adjusted by inflation, while the premium variant cost 24% more. The PlayStation 5 Pro is digital-only, and lacks an optical drive, which can be purchased separately for $80. Adding this cost, the PS5 Pro with a separately purchased optical drive costs exactly as much as the base model PlayStation 3 with 20 GB HDD did, back in 2006, adjusted by inflation.

Over the last four years since the launch of PS5, we've worked hard to continuously evolve the console experience and deliver the great games our players expect from us. Today, I'm incredibly proud to announce the next step in that evolution and welcome PlayStation 5 Pro to the PlayStation family - our most advanced and innovative console hardware to date.

We developed PS5 Pro with deeply engaged players and game creators in mind - as many have asked for a console that runs even higher fidelity graphics with smoother frame rates at 60 FPS. We achieved this on PS5 Pro with several key performance features.

• Upgraded GPU: With PS5 Pro, we are upgrading to a GPU that has 67% more Compute Units than the current PS5 console and 28% faster memory. Overall, this enables up to 45% faster rendering for gameplay, making the experience much smoother.
• Advanced Ray Tracing: We've added even more powerful ray tracing that provides more dynamic reflection and refraction of light. This allows the rays to be cast at double, and at times triple, the speeds of the current PS5 console.
• AI-Driven Upscaling: We're also introducing PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, an AI-driven upscaling that uses a machine learning-based technology to provide super sharp image clarity by adding an extraordinary amount of detail.

Sony is widely expected to announce its new premium PlayStation 5 Pro game console later today. The PlayStation Twitter handle posted that a PlayStation 5 technical presentation hosted by Mark Cerny (PlayStation systems lead architect) would stream later today, without specifying PlayStation 5 Pro. The announcement stream will be rather brisk, spanning only 9 minutes, but it seems enough for Cerny to provide a detailed rundown of what to expect from the PS5 Pro, since this is a premium variant of the existing PS5 generation, and not a "PlayStation 6." The PlayStation 5 Pro is being designed to offer 4K Ultra HD gameplay at native, or near-native resolution, with added eye-candy, thanks to its significantly updated graphics processor.

This could very well be what the elusive new PlayStation 5 console looks like. DeaLabs illustrated its design as part of its article compiling all rumored tech specs of the console. The console's body retains the essential design of the digital-only variant of PlayStation 5, and its refresh. The disc variant of PlayStation 5 has a crease accent running along its side panels, toward the top one-quarter. The PS5 Pro possibly has more crease accents in its place, possibly even serving as a set of air vents. This is only a 2-color illustration, which means the console could have a unique body color scheme, too.

The PlayStation 5 Pro is being designed for a nearly 2-3 times performance uplift over the original PlayStation 5, and its 6 nm mid-lifecycle refresh. AMD remains the SoC supplier for the PS5 Pro, and its chip is codenamed "Viola." This chip could be built on a more advanced foundry node than even the 6 nm "Oberon Plus" powering the PS5 (refresh). It is a semi-custom chip in the true sense, as it has a unique mix of AMD IP blocks from several generations.

We've known since May that AMD is giving its next generation RDNA 4 graphics architecture a significant upgrade with ray tracing performance, and had some clue since then, that the company is working on putting more of the ray tracing workflow through dedicated, fixed function hardware, unburdening the shader engine further. Kepler_L2, a reliable source with GPU leaks sheds light on some of the many new hardware features AMD is introducing with RDNA 4 to better accelerate ray tracing, which should give its GPUs a reduced performance cost of having ray tracing enabled. Kepler_L2 believes that these hardware features should also make it to the GPU of the upcoming Sony PlayStation 5 Pro.

To begin with, the RDNA 4 ray accelerator introduces the new Double Ray Tracing Intersect Engine, which should at least mean a 100% ray intersection performance increase over RDNA 3, which in turn offered a 50% increase over that of RDNA 2. The new RT instance node transform instruction should improve the way the ray accelerators handle geometry. Some of the other features we have trouble describing include a 64-byte RT node, ray tracing tri-pair optimization, Change flags encoded in barycentrics to simplify detection of procedural nodes; improved BVH footprint (possibly memory footprint): and RT support for oriented bounding box and instance node intersection. AMD is expected to debut Radeon RX series gaming GPUs based on RDNA 4 in early 2025.

Thanks for the detailed information obtained by The Verge, today we confirm previously leaked details as Sony gears up to unveil the highly anticipated PlayStation 5 Pro, codenamed "Trinity." According to insider reports, Sony is urging developers to optimize their games for the PS5 Pro, with a primary focus on enhancing ray tracing capabilities. The console is expected to feature an RDNA 3 GPU with 30 WGP running BVH8, capable of 33.5 TeraFLOPS of FP32 single-precision computing power, and a slightly quicker CPU running at 3.85 GHz, enabling it to render games with ray tracing enabled or achieve higher resolutions and frame rates in select titles. Sony anticipates GPU rendering on the PS5 Pro to be approximately 45 percent faster than the standard PlayStation 5. The PS5 Pro GPU will be larger and utilize faster system memory to bolster ray tracing performance, boasting up to three times the speed of the regular PS5.

Additionally, the console will employ a more powerful ray tracing architecture, backed by PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), allowing developers to leverage graphics features like ray tracing more extensively. To support this endeavor, Sony is providing developers with test kits, and all games submitted for certification from August onward must be compatible with the PS5 Pro. Insider Gaming, the first to report the full PS5 Pro specs, suggests a potential release during the 2024 holiday period. The PS5 Pro will also feature modifications for developers regarding system memory, with Sony increasing the memory bandwidth from 448 GB/s to 576 GB/s, enhancing efficiency for an even more immersive gaming experience. To do AI processing, there is an custom AI accelerator capable of 300 8-bit INT8 TOPS and 67 16-bit FP16 TeraFLOPS, in addition to ACV audio codec running up to 35% faster.

The recent PlayStation 5 Pro specification leak has caused quite a stir—even games development studios were surprised by some of these details. Chris Dring (Head of GamesIndustry.biz) attended last week's GDC industry event, where he met many developers who "did not understand the point" of Sony's upcoming mid-generation console refresh. The most hardcore segment of the current PS5 userbase will likely enthusiastically embrace a more powerful variant, but Dring's observations indicate that development studios are not expressing as much excitement—over a refreshed model—as the gaming community. This topic was discussed during yesterday's GamesIndustry.biz Microcast—industry figures believe that the base PlayStation 5 model's full potential remains untapped.

This mirrors a debate over a possible upgraded Xbox Series variant—gaming fans have complained about restrictive 30 FPS performance, even on the more potent Series X console; but experts believe that developers need to spend more time optimizing their software or produce "truly next-gen" experiences. Dring's sources expressed doubt about the PS5 Pro's predicted ability to "grow the market" or "move the needle"—ultimately, Sony will make some more money and gain headline coverage post-launch. The refreshed variant is expected to reach retail later this year, but industry watchdogs reckon that momentum will be lost due to the absence of a system-selling title around launch time. Grand Theft Auto VI would be the ideal "killer app," but insider murmurs posit a delay into 2026.

Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson believes that Sony PlayStation leadership will tighten up development conditions, following recent leaks pertaining to the technological underpinnings of the heavily rumored "PS5 Pro" home console. An IGN report and another Henderson-authored article posit that last week's revelations are "legit," according to their respective networks of industry moles. Apparently top secret information was extracted from a technical document—reports suggest that Sony sent this paper to its third-party development partners, alongside a new batch of development kits.

Industry experts think that (slated) repercussions could affect smaller development houses—Henderson tweeted: "as expected, Sony has launched an internal investigation into the leaked documents on Trinity as it leaked during a third-party rollout...Not sure on the implications yet as I don't think they can catch one individual, but Sony could reduce its third-party developer pool for new tech as a result." Rumors of a "mid-gen hardware refresh" have been swirling for almost a year and a half, but PlayStation bosses seem to be rattled into action (this week). Microsoft maintained a cool exterior following the leak of next-gen Xbox details, but that information emerged from unredacted court documents. Phil Spencer and his colleagues claim that future Xbox product roadmaps are in constant flux.