PS5 Pro Review – A Step into The Future

It’s been over six months since the PS5 Pro was initially launched. The PS5 Pro console experienced a long and tumultuous rumor cycle. Hideaki Nishino (CEO of SIE) states, “We started working on the PS5 Pro even before the PS5 launches, it was another five-year project for us”. This interview with Nishino happened in October of last year, a few weeks before the PS5 Pro’s November launch, which means work on the PS5 Pro started in 2019. 

These companies are creatures of habit, and building out these consoles is a long and arduous process requiring work, research & development. Going off Nishino’s words, this tells me the PS6 started development at least 1-2 years before the PS5 Pro release. And the target launch for their next big hardware project will land between 2027 and 2028.

The Thought Pro-cess

Admittedly, I have fallen out of love with PlayStation over the past few years. Following the cancellation of their more exciting projects, such as Last of Us Factions or the multiplayer Spider-Man project, to the games that feel like they are stuck in limbo, such as Wolverine or Fairgames, it is a stark contrast to some of the fondest memories I hold from my younger years.

I have been using my launch day PS5 less and less as the years go on, only booting it up when a new batch of games drops on their base PS Plus offering, or when an exclusive is catching my eye. But I am someone who loves new, stronger technologies. And the potential of something is always exciting.

So, after careful consideration and with the looming uncertainty of the future of tech, I decided to give them a second chance. After an entire month of testing the device and its capabilities. Playing all sorts of PS5 and PS4 games on it and conducting a ton of research to give you (the reader) the best and most accurate information. I am ready to share my findings. Starting with the initial setup process.

The Initial PS5 Pro Experience

Before even plugging in the device and booting it up, I installed the disk drive, which did not pose much of a challenge. Just pop off one side of the panel and slot it in. Soft plastic clicks indicate if everything is done correctly and we are ready to go. When booting the device initially and establishing an internet connection, the console goes through a series of restarts and updates, and if you have a disk drive, you expect a few more restarts. After signing in to my profile, the system asks if I want to enable console sharing & offline play. This is important because this setting allows us to make our consoles speak to each other and play the games offline. 

The pleasant quality of life feature is how easy they made it to transfer data from different consoles. If the user has external storage with PS4 games or an M2 SSD for their current PS5, all that stuff is plug & play with the PS5 Pro machine. But if you do not have these, you can still transfer the data through Wi-Fi or by tethering the two consoles with one Ethernet cable.

The Choice I Made

I opted to transfer only my saves and installed games individually. This system transfer option is still available in the settings after the initial boot. After all that, we are set up and thrust into a very familiar UI. But familiarity is good in this sense, there is not much for me to learn. Players who already own PS5s will feel right at home. But I did not buy an expensive console to stare at the UI all day. So let’s jump into the gaming experience. 

Gaming on the PS5 Pro

As I waited for FF7 Rebirth’s massive 150 gigs to install, I hopped into Astro’s Playroom since it is pre-installed on every PS5. And I’m not going to lie, I did not notice a difference when playing that title on the Pro.

After doing a Google search, I realized that the game is not even Pro-enhanced, which is strange because it is a pack-in title. But I suspect anyone new to the PS5 experience will still enjoy their time in Astro’s Playroom. After my brief endeavor with Astro, my download is complete, and I hop into Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. 

Starting with Rebirth

It makes sense why FF7 Rebirth is the PS5 Pro’s showcase title, as it reveals its potential. Mark Cerny’s own words from the Technical Presentation state the following:

“A key target for the PS5 Pro is to give the players the graphics that the game creators aspire to achieve, at the high frame rates players typically prefer”.

And FF7 rebirth justifies the thought process here. Those wanting to appreciate the difference with their own eyes and get more in-depth information about the AI upscaling tech inside PS5 Pro, I highly recommend watching Digital Foundry’s coverage of FF7 Rebirth on the newer machine.

Stellar Blade

The other game that I experienced that offers a substantial difference is Stellar Blade. However, the graphics modes in this title are somewhat deceiving. There are the original three from the base console, then there are two graphic modes that the pro introduces. The Pro Max mode is the one that is a bit deceiving. It does not use PSSR to enhance the image.

Pro Max mode removes the frame rate cap from the base PS5 Quality mode. When switching to the Pro mode, I noticed increased sharpness in Stellar Blade’s image quality. That is because this mode uses the PSSR, and the Pro mode also offers frame rates of up to 80 fps.

More titles tested on the PS5 Pro

A quiet feature of the PS5 Pro is the Boost mode. This means that if a game is not PS5 Pro enhanced, titles can still receive improvements on the stronger machine due to the significantly faster GPU and slightly faster CPU.

If the game has a dynamic resolution, then the PS5 Pro will do its best to keep that target closer to the upper limit. The other benefit is if the game runs at an uncapped frame rate or has an uncapped frame rate toggle. The Pro will do its best to hit higher numbers there as well.

The first Non-Pro enhanced title I checked out is a Vita gem that got a remaster earlier in the year, Freedom Wars Remastered. Although the title doesn’t offer Pro enhancement, it does not necessarily need it. Freedom Wars Remastered already runs at 4k resolution at a locked 60fps on the base PS5, although I would like to see a 120fps mode because the game can certainly hit those higher frames.

The other PS5 title I looked at is RoboCop: Rogue City. This one is interesting. In gameplay, it does hit 60 fps. In cutscenes, there’s instability in the frames. I went over to the Base PS5 to see if the frame drops also occur in the cutscenes there, and yeah, it felt like the game would dip far below the 60fps line at times.

PS4 Image Enhancement

The last feature that I tested is the PS4 Image Enhancement feature. This one is more of a mixed bag. To test the PS4 Image Enhancement, I chose the PS4 titles Gravity Rush 2 and Doom 2016. Here are the side-by-sides below. In Doom, the text does appear slightly sharper, while in Gravity Rush 2, there is no difference between the images.

Instead of going into every PS4 game, I consulted the internet to uncover what is going on with this feature. The conclusion is that the image enhancement layer does work, but there is one big caveat. The enhancement to the image only works on the PS4 titles that were not enhanced for the PS4 Pro.

These improvements are minor, but the Image enhancement aims to provide clarity in UI and the HUD, and it can make the image overall a bit sharper. However, it is a shame that the PS5 Pro does not do much else for these older PS4 titles.

The PS5 Pro compared to its contemporaries

Since I do not have the software to gauge actual performance metrics for these titles, I went to one of my new favorite tech channels, Brazil Pixel.

I appreciate this channel because its tech analysis gives us all the information on the tests, from exact resolutions and frame rates, to even how much power the system is drawing. So here are the numbers that I crunched up. And I mainly looked at the resolution differences for these titles.

The frame rate targets are usually the same. For Indiana Jones in this exact screenshot, the Pro pushes 81% more pixels on the screen compared to PS5. And compared to the Xbox Series X, the Pro pushes around 26% more pixels.

The second title I ran numbers on is Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. In this screenshot, Brazil Pixel showcases the game running in quality mode on the Xbox Series X, PS5, and PS5 Pro. In this instance, the Pro offers 30% more pixels than the base PS5. And around a 14% improvement compared to the Series X.

The last game I ran my calculations on is Sniper Elite 5. Comparing the numbers in this screenshot. Sniper Elite 5 pushes 101% more pixels compared to the base PS5 and around 47% more pixels when compared to the Series X. The Pro generally comes out ahead of the PS5.

However, the Series X does trade-for-trade blows with the newer device, aside from the resolution. The other metric I would like to emphasize is how much less power the Series X is drawing compared to both rival machines.

The Pro’s

In theory, the machine learning (PSSR) is easing the CPU and GPU workload on the console. Which means the chip is not working as hard, thanks to the AI machine learning inside the device. Another thing to note is that the console does have slightly more RAM than the base model.

The Pro has 16 Gigs of GDDR6 and 2 extra gigs of GDDR5 for 18 GB of RAM. The slower 2 GB of GDDR5 is set aside for the UI.

This allows the games to take advantage of the full 16 gigs of GDDR6. Another upside of the PS5 Pro is fast loading speeds. It’s not substantial, but the newer device does load into games slightly faster.

Lastly, the console has 2 TB of SSD storage, a huge improvement over the measly 800 GBs in the base PS5 launch model.

The Con’s

Now for the set of cons. One of them is the price tag. The price did not shock me, considering Sony is the market leader, but it is still a hefty amount. Not including the disk drive or even the vertical stand in the box is just flat out greedy. And I think Sony could have gone the extra mile and offered more improvements to older PS4 games, such as an FPS boost-like feature.

Final thoughts on the PS5 Pro

After spending a month with the console, the PS5 Pro can be a compelling device. It is the amalgamation of everything Sony has built up with the PS5. Offering better-looking games, faster speeds, and more storage. It does more often than not hit that 40-50% performance increase over the base machine.

As a consumer who purchased a PS5 at launch, it does sting a bit because I wish that the Pro was just what the PS5 is, but sadly, it is not. The Pro is a boutique console for gamers wanting the best console gaming experience in 2025. It employs cutting-edge tech that, when optimized correctly, produces great-looking games despite its steep cost.

The PS5 Pro currently symbolizes a step into the future of game development with Machine Learning and this is only the beginning.

Verdict – 8/10

Pro’s

• PS5 Pro Enhanced games look great
• PS5 boost mode
• Hefty amount of storage
• AI image reconstruction (PSSR)
• Faster loading
• The option to add a disk drive
• Clean User Interface
• Easy to transition from the base console

Con’s

• Expensive
• PS4 image enhancement is lacking
• No disk drive included
• No vertical stand included
• Titles that leverage the device vary