In the fourth year after the release of Sony's latest generation gaming console, PlayStation 5 (hereinafter referred to as "PS5"), its upgraded version has finally revealed its true colors.
On September 10th local time, Sony officially released information about the PS5 Pro and announced that the game console will be officially launched on November 7th. The prices in various regions are: $699.99 for the US version (about 4976.79 yuan), £ 699 for the UK version (about 6512.02 yuan), € 799 for the European version (about 6277.74 yuan), and ¥ 119980 for the Japanese version (about 6036.19 yuan). At present, the price of the domestic version PS5 Pro has not been announced.
(Image caption: Comparison between PS5 Pro and PS5 regular version Image source: Sony official website)
In the official one minute introduction video, Sony stated that the PS5 Pro is "the next leap in console gaming". Regarding the new features of the PS5 Pro, Hideaki Nishino, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment Platform Business Unit, stated in an official website article that in order to achieve higher fidelity graphics at a frame rate of 60FPS on the PS5 model to meet the needs of developers and players, the upgraded PS5 Pro mainly achieves this goal through three key features:
On the one hand, the PS5 Pro has upgraded its existing graphics processing unit (GPU). It is reported that the GPU of PS5 Pro has increased by 67% compared to the regular PS5 host, with a 28% increase in memory speed, which can improve game rendering speed by 45%;
On the other hand, Sony has also upgraded the ray tracing function in the PS5 Pro, allowing its ray tracing speed to reach 2 to 3 times that of the regular version console;
In addition, Sony has also used its self-developed artificial intelligence driver "PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution" in the PS5 Pro, which is based on machine learning technology to add more details to the picture to improve image clarity.
Judging from the sales of the regular version of PS5, its 4-year lifecycle has already caused its shipment volume to show signs of fatigue. On August 7th, Sony released its Q1 2024 financial report (April 1st, 2024 to June 30th, 2024), which showed that as of June 30th, 2024, the shipment of PS5 consoles had reached 61.7 million units. In the first quarter, the shipment of PS5 consoles was 2.4 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 27.3%, and a decrease of 900000 units compared to the 3.3 million units shipped in the same period of 2023.
After the release date and related parameters of PS5 Pro were announced, as of the close of the US stock market on September 10th, Sony's stock price rose slightly to $92.98 per share, up 2.12%.
From the body image of the PS5 Pro released by Sony, its appearance is basically the same as the regular version PS5, and its volume is slightly larger than the regular version PS5. However, it is worth noting that the PS5 Pro, priced at up to 5000 yuan, does not have a disc drive installed on the body.
Regarding this significant change, Hideaki Nishino also stated in the article that although the PS5 Pro does not have an optical drive, users with a need can purchase an external optical drive separately. It is reported that the 4K Blu ray drive that comes with the PS5 Pro is priced at $79.99 (approximately 569.03 RMB). This also means that if users want to start games with game discs in PS5 Pro, they will need to pay at least $779.98 (about 5548.54 yuan) in cost.
Inevitably, the decision to remove the optical drive setting from the PS5 Pro's body has sparked controversy within the industry and among users. Looking back at the regular version of PS5 released, Sony did not take such a big step in "de optically driving" the game console. Instead, the model was divided into an optical drive version and a digital version without an optical drive, giving users the space to choose from.
But the decision to cut off the PS5 Pro from the optical drive is a microcosm of the decline of the physical gaming industry.
From 2023 to present, large physical game retailers such as GameStop and Tesco have chosen to reduce the sales scale of physical games or lay off employees. Game industry analyst Mat Piscatella predicts that digital games will experience explosive growth in the next two years. By 2028, most Xbox and PS games will only be released in digital versions, while relatively conservative Nintendo will continue to retain physical game releases.
In addition to the demand for digital games surpassing physical games, a senior analyst in the consumer electronics industry analyzed in an interview with 21st Century Business Herald that from the perspective of development costs, the cost of optical drive components is not low. Cancelling the optical drive can reduce the production cost of PS5 Pro and thus have a pricing advantage. At the same time, Sony can also invest more energy in subscription based PS Plus services, thereby increasing more software service revenue, "he pointed out.
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