Sony had already started plotting out the early ideas for a mid-gen PlayStation 5 Pro even before the PS5 launched in 2020.
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The PS5 Pro was in pre-production discussion phases of development since before the PS5 released, a new IGN interview has revealed. This is typically customary for Sony–as a consumer electronics firm, Sony must always be planning the next wave of technology on a near-perpetual basis. The console market is cyclical, and both Sony and Microsoft have invested significantly into mid-gen upgrades to power new gaming experiences and to boost hardware sales profits.
“We started discussing [the PS5 Pro] before the PS5 actually came out…because the PS5 specs were already locked in. We were ready to launch and everything. We knew, of course, as you mentioned, technologies evolve every year,” PlayStation product manager Toshi Aoki told IGN.
Taking a look at Sony’s patents also gives interesting clues as to their initial thought processes around the PS5 Pro, including an innovative dual-SoC design that could have effectively doubled the power of the system with two APUs working in tandem.
It’s likely that this project idea was scrapped early on due to high costs, especially during the COVID-19 era which saw console supply strangled due to rising component and production costs. However, Sony did work with AMD to create a custom block for machine learning right onto the PS5 Pro’s chip that facilitates its new proprietary PlayStation Spectral Resolution (PSSR) tech.
It’s worth mentioning that the PS5 also had machine learning capabilities that actually led to character deformation advancements in Spider-Man Miles Morales. We’ve known that Sony’s AI division had been working closely with first-party PlayStation game developers since 2021.
PSSR is an AI library that’s specifically designed to deliver better performance without having to provide a significantly larger GPU+CPU combo; it’s a bit of tech wizardry similar to DLSS and FSR that uses upscaling to boost image quality while not heavily diminishing frame rates. In fact, using PSSR, developers can effectively double frame rates in select games on the PS5 Pro.