• The PS5 Pro offers significant improvements in AI scaling, but fails to deliver a revolutionary leap in performance despite its high price.

• In the future, advancements in gaming are expected to focus on refining existing technologies rather than revolutionary changes.

• We’ve reached a point where gamers may need to change their expectations of what they can expect from new hardware, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The PS5 Pro is Sony’s mid-generation upgrade to the PS5, but it has caused a lot of skepticism and confusion among fans. While Sony presents the Pro as a significant step forward in terms of graphics fidelity, the console is far from making a generational leap. Have we reached the point where hardware advancements are no longer the determining factor in pushing the boundaries of gaming?

The PS5 Pro is a small upgrade with a hefty price tag

The PS5 Pro’s goal is to push the boundaries of performance and visual fidelity even further, and that’s largely down to its focus on hardware-accelerated scaling. Sony wants smoother and more aesthetically pleasing gameplay, even if the end result may be less than players expected.

This incremental step feels more like a refinement of what the PS5 has already achieved than a revolutionary advancement. This is good, but this is not reflected in the price, which raises much higher expectations.

Sony slowed down gameplay to show players frame rate improvements, zoomed in on background footage to show graphical improvements, and even did side-by-side comparisons of how the PS5 Pro can looks great and keeps the SPF high. However, since it took a long time to hear about an upgrade over the original PS5, many gamers were expecting more. It was a disappointment with a price of $700.

At this price, players should expect a significant improvement over those seen between generations, but this sort of thing seems unlikely to happen again. This mid-generation refresh isn’t even the first to go in this direction. Even the launch of the PS5 was tempered by the fact that the future is not about progress but smaller, meaningful progress.

The goal posts have moved

The goals of video game advancement have changed. Games like Spider-Man 2 have already pushed the limits, eliminate loading screens and offering a level of immersion that was once unimaginable. Fast moving from one end of the map to the other with a two-second buffer (i.e. only there for gamers) is a goal that the industry has been aiming for for a long time.

The problem is that we can’t expect such massive advancements in the future, but rather focus on refining what currently exists.

While the PS5 Pro’s modest improvements may seem disappointing to some, they are a testament to this new reality. It’s difficult to look at the transition from PS4 to PS5 and make meaningful comparisons to the progress we’ve seen in the past.

But if you can zoom through a beautiful map in no time just to navigate a dense cityscape at breakneck speed without appreciable changes in resolution or detail, how far can we really go? What more can a developer do, other than fine-tuning the small details?

The days of being blown away by the power of the latest console may be behind us. Instead of striving for photorealistic perfection or faster loading, developers can focus on the finer details that improve gameplay. These include smoother frame rates, improved lighting and advanced rendering techniques like ray tracing.

These lenses will focus on better lighting, highlights and shadows or make 60fps the new standard. This amounts to asking a high price for what may not be considered “enough” to justify an upgrade to the average consumer.

Early adopters matter more

Before the PS4, console releases were highly anticipated, selling many units upon release and declining over time. This shows how early adopters were the initial driver of sales, followed by wider market adoption. But the PS4 saw a significant increase in sales during its third and fourth years, which represents a change in the market.

Gamers are starting to behave more like “regular” technology consumers, who need to familiarize themselves with new products rather than jumping in first as they come out. Console makers now have to earn their purchase instead of just waiting for it. IGN take a survey where the vast majority of those surveyed thought the PS5 Pro wasn’t worth its price (although it’s fair not to put too much emphasis on this kind of exercise).

It appears that early adopters, typically more willing to pay a premium for the latest technology, will soon be at the forefront of new consoles.

While we can certainly argue that the PS5 Pro offers symbolic advancements in AI scaling, that may not be enough for Sony to sell to consumers who are. still happy with the PS4 or PS5 because they can still play newer games. The PS4 Pro felt like it was worth upgrading at a time when 4K TVs left a gap in the market.

It also helped that Sony’s latest mid-range refresh didn’t break the bank. But the PS5 Pro justifies the question of Who is it for and if you need to upgrade.

Is this “new normal” a bad thing?

The constant pursuit of constant improvements in graphics and high-speed processing in games has led us to a point where the progress we were seeing with each generation has become much smaller. While the PS5 Pro significantly improves on some aspects of Sony’s existing console, it doesn’t signal a revolutionary shift in the gaming landscape we’re used to.

Instead, it points to a future in which developers will focus on refine and optimize existing technologies rather than pushing towards entirely new levels of visual fidelity. The PS5 Pro’s focus on hardware-accelerated upscaling, ray tracing, and higher frame rates might just be the new standard.

We’re seeing developers refine aspects like lighting, shadows, and reflections to create more immersive experiences, rather than just trying to make everything more “real.” The result is a focus on subtle improvements that build on the overall gaming experience rather than one obvious aspect that blows players away.

That’s not to say that future games won’t be visually stunning; they are all beautiful, which is worth celebrating. Instead, we will focus on creating more believable and immersive worlds that are more fun to explore and interact with.

Ultimately, the PS5 Pro represents a step toward a future where gameplay and immersion take precedence over brute-force graphics, which is arguably a good thing for gamers.