Is it just us, or does the gaming industry seem to, somehow, be in an even worse state than Hollywood right now?
Developers collapse, merge, or get bought up by a few big players before being stripped or shuttered. The industry seems even more determined than Hollywood to take a dump on its core clients, and then whoever is left gets violated with downloadable content, in-game purchases, and subscriptions. Then they laugh in your face with hardware costs – like the just announced PlayStation 5 Pro.
Coming worldwide on November 7th, and opening for pre-orders starting on September 20th, it will have the staggering price of $700.
On the surface, it seems an astonishing price point when the original console is available with a drive for $499. So buy the PS5 Pro, and no physical media for you.
So what are you getting for your money? According to the release news, it has a larger GPU with 67% more “Compute Units” and 28% faster memory, 45% faster rendering capability, advanced ray tracing, a 2TB SSD, and AI-driven upscaling for new and existing titles.
The claim is smoother gameplay, and a dedicated Advanced Ray Tracing system that they say will double, and at times triple, the current Ps5 capability.
There is also talk online of something called the “PS5 Pro Game Boost” which will upscale 8,500 backward-compatible PS4 games on the PS5 Pro.
Sony Interactive Entertainment business CEO, Hideaki Nishino said in the release:
“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 60FPS.”
Software update patches will be released for free which will allow games to take advantage of new PS5 Pro.
$700 price point. Creeping hardware enhancements, software updates, and patches with only some games capable of using some features. This is all starting to feel uncomfortably like PC gaming and therefore completely undermining the entire point of a console.