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Digital Foundry - Do we actually need a PS5 Pro?

Needlecrash

Member
No. More than 1.5 years in and it's still hard as hell to acquire one without minus paying scalper prices for it. Most still can't get a rookie console, what makes anyone think a Pro would be any better?
 

THE:MILKMAN

Member
maybe interesting?


That's the video from which this thread was created (before the vid was pulled for a few days for paying patrons)!

I think in the first few minutes Rich outlines multiple reasons why Pro/mid-gen consoles really don't make much sense this time round. I wouldn't be surprised if they did them anyway, but I would rather the resources (which have massively increased in silicone production alone) be spent on full next-gen systems. With the push for the subscription model and GaaS games, from a pure business POV an iteration model on the HW would/might be preferred but the huge increase in costs developing new systems every ~3 years surely is a big factor?
 

kyliethicc

Member
but but but youtube said, the video was just an hour old :pie_eyeroll:
Seems I mixed up this thread with the other one with the weekly DF show...
No worries. Someone shared the link into a discord I’m in. I watched the vid, made the thread. Had no idea the video was unlisted, until someone pointed that out, and then later DF made the link private. Idk. It’s back now public, thankfully.
 

ManaByte

Member
Yes dying light 2 is the biggest example.

A Techland game?
Cracking Up Lol GIF by NBA on TNT
 

Petopia

Banned
Nah, never owned an XBox. With Dying Light 2, it is really obvious that Techland has primarily focused on the PC.
I mean Sony guys should be saying about amd zen 1.5 architecture but I guess thats too much of a mouthful for those who wanna just turn on and play muh games on the couch.
 
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DukeNukem00

Banned
Dying Light is just horribly optimised on consoles. Games like RDR2 or The Last of Us Part II look and perform better even on the PS4.


Dying Light is a dense urban enviroment, where you can enter every building, the state of the gameworld is preserved and the game is fully dynamic lit. Last of Us 2 is a small, cramped and static gameworld, with everything prebaked and fixed. Red Dead 2 outside of Saint Dennis is a flat and empty plane. There are clear reasons for each game's performance, its nothing miraculous happening in either dirrection.
 

Venuspower

Member
Dying Light is a dense urban enviroment, where you can enter every building, the state of the gameworld is preserved and the game is fully dynamic lit. Last of Us 2 is a small, cramped and static gameworld, with everything prebaked and fixed. Red Dead 2 outside of Saint Dennis is a flat and empty plane. There are clear reasons for each game's performance, its nothing miraculous happening in either dirrection.

A few points you raise are of course correct. Nevertheless, it is more than obvious that Dyning Light 2 does not even come close to exploiting the potential of the current consoles. To a certain extent, this is also due to the fact that the game was released on the old gen. And of course not every studio has the capacity to get the best out of all platforms. In many respects, however, Dying Light 2 is technically absolutely unimpressive. Unlike the other games I mentioned. RDR2 in particular is also much more complex, if you ask me. In Dying Light 2 you only have a bunch of stupid zombies and a few NPCs in between. But the AI here is also anything but good.

By the way, you cannot enter every building in Dying Light 2. Also in terms of the number of zombies, Days Gone impressed me much more.
 
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No, developers need to focus on game design more not just "ooooo my rtx". The best games this year arent the prettiest but the art direction and game design make the experience. Elden Ring could have og tomb raider graphics, still an amazing game off game design while a game like Horizion isnt noticably better if you add more lighting, more pixels. The consoles are good enough atm, let the developers focus on more gameplay oriented innovations, not just tryna out pretty each other.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
It is just not the console model (and it is a lie to promise a better world by releasing more frequent updates as tech, at a fixed power envelope, is slowing down).

Consoles are not about evil corps they withhold power from devs and gamers: they are about fa promise of fixed platform that 100% of your users have and low level access that makes it possible and worthwhile to use the unique specs within them. You develop on PC or especially mobile and see the fun that HW diversity really gives you.
Looking at Xbox One X and PS4 Pro and the token support they received also does not inspire confidence. It is a good trick to try to prevent people from demanding lower prices though.

Token support? I'm pretty sure the majority of games released after those consoles launched have had specific improvements on them (typically higher resolutions, sometimes higher framerates).
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Token support? I'm pretty sure the majority of games released after those consoles launched have had specific improvements on them (typically higher resolutions, sometimes higher framerates).
Exactly, whatever they could brute force. Not all devs, but nothing anyone could quite more than “quick” patches.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Exactly, whatever they could brute force. Not all devs, but nothing anyone could quite more than “quick” patches.

Yeah well, it was the same hardware with more GPU compute units and slightly higher clocks. So that's about what you could expect. And those consoles were explicitly made to achieve higher resolutions in the same games (what with the advent of 4K TVs), not much more.
 
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THE:MILKMAN

Member
I guessing only the PS5 was mentioned in it. They probably realized that was a bad idea.

Not sure why as Rich even states in the video that Andrew Goossen even told him that the reason they went for X/S SKUs was because the big cost reductions over time have gone now which in hindsight seems like a particularly smart move. Even before factoring in today's huge inflation, chip shortages, supply chain issues etc, any mid-gen upgrade will probably have to cost £800/£1000! Given the small differences we currently see with cross-gen games on DF, I can't imagine how disappointed I would be for the relatively minor differences a really niche expensive Pro would provide.

See thread's title.

So they just added the '/' and 'Xbox Series Next'? I guess Xbox owners complained then! See above where Andrew Goossen explains why cost reductions are very difficult now making mid-gen upgrades really expensive on top which all the other issues right now.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Yeah well, it was the same hardware with more GPU compute units and slightly higher clocks. So that's about what you could expect. And those consoles were explicitly made to achieve higher resolutions in the same games (what with the advent of 4K TVs), not much more.

It is actually a generation newer GPU cores, so new features too, on top of more memory (especially on XOX) and faster clocks. One can say that they were built for brute force usage by devs, but I still get the feeling that if developers had used them as minimum HW specs you would have gotten bolder games.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
It is actually a generation newer GPU cores, so new features too, on top of more memory (especially on XOX) and faster clocks. One can say that they were built for brute force usage by devs, but I still get the feeling that if developers had used them as minimum HW specs you would have gotten bolder games.

I don't think that's true for the PS4 Pro? My understanding is that it's pretty much the same GPU as in the PS4 x 2, with a slightly higher clock (thus 1.84TF -> 4.2TF rather than just a 2x increase) and a few other minor improvements. XB1 -> XB1X was obviously a bigger leap, partly because the XB1 was shit to start with but also because they waited longer and could make a bigger upgrade.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
I don't think that's true for the PS4 Pro? My understanding is that it's pretty much the same GPU as in the PS4 x 2, with a slightly higher clock (thus 1.84TF -> 4.2TF rather than just a 2x increase) and a few other minor improvements. XB1 -> XB1X was obviously a bigger leap, partly because the XB1 was shit to start with but also because they waited longer and could make a bigger upgrade.
CPU clock also rose in both models, for the XSX so did bandwidth by a lot, but both GPU’s were based on more modern cores: PS4 Pro was Polaris based with some Vega features (like double rate FP16 or RPM, DCC or Delta Color Compression, etc…).


To be fair Sony went maybe a bit too much on the features side of things with an even newer core and features set than XOX, but the latter was easier to brute force things through without having to rely on advanced features to punch above its weight.
 
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Petopia

Banned
A few points you raise are of course correct. Nevertheless, it is more than obvious that Dyning Light 2 does not even come close to exploiting the potential of the current consoles. To a certain extent, this is also due to the fact that the game was released on the old gen. And of course not every studio has the capacity to get the best out of all platforms. In many respects, however, Dying Light 2 is technically absolutely unimpressive. Unlike the other games I mentioned. RDR2 in particular is also much more complex, if you ask me. In Dying Light 2 you only have a bunch of stupid zombies and a few NPCs in between. But the AI here is also anything but good.

By the way, you cannot enter every building in Dying Light 2. Also in terms of the number of zombies, Days Gone impressed me much more.
Still sticking with my point man.
 
A few issues:
Dev's have not even yet scratched the surface with the PS5 and Series consoles.
All next gen consoles are not readily available at retail apart from maybe the Series S.
Cross-gen is still unfortunately a thing so the userbase for all games is still split between old and new gen.
If the systems had more power we'd be able to get better settings and performance on all the games that's been released, of which many are REALLY lacking. Dying light 2 on PC with RT looks amazing...on console it looks like poop unless you don't have ray tracing AND cut the framerate in half - but without ray tracing it doesn't look next gen

We have enough examples to show where the consoles are lacking in- Ray tracing and the ability to do it at 60 fps
 

onQ123

Member
They probably heard that PS5 Pro was coming but nothing on Series Xpro yet.

A PS5 Pro would put Xbox in a weird place because PS5 will probably be at 40 million when PS5 Pro come out so they have moved enough PS5 consoles but Series X would be at 15 million at the most & making 3 different Series Consoles will be complicated.
 
More about the PS6?

Like what?

That it will eventually be coming? lmao.

PS5 Pro would be dope if this gen is going to be long. I'd get it for the higher resolution/framerate, especially in VR as it will help push the visuals to the max there.
 

Celcius

°Temp. member
We got one pro console (technically two with Xbox one series x) and now people want everything to have a pro. Switch Pro, PS5 Pro, etc…
 
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Corndog

Banned
They probably heard that PS5 Pro was coming but nothing on Series Xpro yet.

A PS5 Pro would put Xbox in a weird place because PS5 will probably be at 40 million when PS5 Pro come out so they have moved enough PS5 consoles but Series X would be at 15 million at the most & making 3 different Series Consoles will be complicated.
Xbox has already sold 15 million over half a year ago from what I could find. It is certainly behind ps5 but not as bad as your making it.
I think a pro would come out next year. They already have vr coming this year.
 

Corndog

Banned
More about the PS6?

Like what?

That it will eventually be coming? lmao.

PS5 Pro would be dope if this gen is going to be long. I'd get it for the higher resolution/framerate, especially in VR as it will help push the visuals to the max there.
From the rumors I’ve seen it’s more about improving ray tracing. Both consoles are pretty weak in that regard.
 

Indyblue

Member
Goodness gracious, I feel like we’ve barely gotten any games from this gen yet. I mean I like them for the 60fps back compat and quick resume but no, it’s waaaayyy too soon. Maybe like in 2026.
 

onQ123

Member
Xbox has already sold 15 million over half a year ago from what I could find. It is certainly behind ps5 but not as bad as your making it.
I think a pro would come out next year. They already have vr coming this year.
Read it again I said Xbox Series X
 

onQ123

Member
Why break out series x but not digital vs Blu-ray ps5? Same number of skews for both at this time. I believe Xbox also ran 3 skews in the past when the one x came out but I could be wrong.
Because that's how manufacturing works The prices go down with the more that can be made .
 
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