Until the next generation of systems arrives with the PlayStation 6 and the next Xbox, Sony’s PS5 Pro will be the most powerful gaming console on the market. With a launch cost of 700 USD, 200 more than the most expensive regular model, we’d hope that the system lives up to its price tag. Early impressions have demonstrated that while this might be the case for some users, it’s difficult to promote as a device every PlayStation fan needs. Perhaps more important to the average user is what the PS5 Pro tells us about the future of not just Sony’s systems, but of console gaming as a whole. What can we expect from the next generation of traditional console systems, and will this affect our playing experience in the decade to come?
A Reliable Emphasis on Frame Rate?
During the initial and subsequent announcements regarding the PS5 Pro, leader architect Mark Cerny noted that one of the key takeaways from the current generation of PS5 games was the importance of frame rate. Cerny mentioned that when games offered multiple options for either performance-focused 60 FPS modes or higher-resolution and detailed 30 FPS modes, players tended towards the former. This was interesting because it goes against a fundamental direction that console gaming has taken for decades. Ever since the PS3 generation, games have routinely sacrificed FPS for detail, often in a way players took exception to.
The PS5 and Xbox Series generation has been the first to seriously emphasize player choice here, and the results are clear and undeniable. The primary selling point of the PS5 Pro is that it can essentially run the high-detail modes available on the original systems at the frame rates of the performance mode. While this doesn’t guarantee all future games will lean more toward performance, a whole console being based on this idea should encourage developers and publishers of the importance of higher FPS gameplay.
The Probability of Cross-Generation Content
The PS5 Pro’s upgrades providing enhanced features are unique in this generation, but there is precedence from other platforms in the past. Microsoft followed a similar path to the Xbox One X boosting game performance back in 2017. Nintendo offered a similar route with its 3DS and New 3DS lineup, while backward compatibility is practically guaranteed for Switch 1 titles on the Switch 2. This kind of accessibility across generations, while relatively new in consoles, has a long history in other forms of digital entertainment, such as online casinos. An NJ casino app, for example, offers access and play from more than ten generations of mobile devices, as long as those devices support modern HTML5. Such implementation means players across many systems have equal access to the same enormous game lineup, bonuses, and special features.
A target like wider compatibility between devices through cross-generational content is necessary for modern gaming because of the ballooning costs of AAA development. These are the titles that manufacturers believe draw the most attention, and they’re increasingly expensive to build. Releasing them on just one generation of systems isn’t financially viable, so ports across different systems like the PS5, PS5 Pro, and eventual PS6 are growing more important with each new generation. Instead of fully remade ports, changes are appearing more incremental, very different from how translations were managed in the past. While we can’t recommend the PS5 Pro as a must-have for anyone without the cash to spare, its performance will undoubtedly influence the next generation of systems and titles. Should players react positively, a greater emphasis on frame rate and cross-generation play could become foundations of what’s to come. Let’s just hope the Pro doesn’t normalize an inflating cost of the next generation of systems or the removal of disk drives standard.
