PS5 Pro one year later – is Sony's souped-up mid-generation upgrade now worth buying?
With the price of video game consoles only continuing to skyrocket, we take a look at whether PS5 Pro is worth the upgrade 12 months on from its release.
2025 marks five years since the world was first introduced to the power of PS5 (if you can believe it), and one year since Sony’s mid-generation upgrade, the PS5 Pro, sped its way onto the scene. Speaking honestly, I’m someone who was more than sceptical about the latter ever since its initial announcement on September 10, 2024. Did we really
And yet, the idea of improved performance, advanced ray-tracing capabilities, two whole terabytes of built-in storage, and the ability to play games at a simultaneous 4K 60fps was an alluring prospect. One I was curious to see if PS5 Pro could deliver on. Well, with it now being roughly 12 months since the PS5 Pro first released, it’s safe to say that the upgraded PS5 model has had plenty of time to gestate. And I’d be lying if I said it’s been a totally smooth ride.
Because while it’s true that plenty of new releases such as Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Ghost of Yotei, and others have certainly benefited from the Pro’s extra ‘oomph’ in processing power, there’s been more than a few teething issues for other high-profile releases – most obviously Silent Hill 2, which, up until recently, was borderline unplayable on Sony’s souped-up console. That said, there’s plenty of advantages to owning a PS5 Pro too, so let’s weigh up the pros and cons.
The elephant in the room, of course, is that most first-party and third-party titles already look great on a standard PS5, right? It meant that PS5 Pro started off already fighting an uphill battle. Unlike the PS4 era where you could only enjoy 4K gaming towards the end generation if you ponied up the cash for a PS4 Pro, the PS5 launched in 2020 as an already exceptional machine capable of rendering most games beautifully.
One sticking point, however, was the inability to play games at 4K 60fps simultaneously, with players instead still forced to choose between playing games in either Performance or Quality mode on a standard PS5.
Thankfully, that’s where the PS5 Pro does a lot of heavy lifting, offering a sharper degree of image clarity using AI-driven PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) on 4K TVs while also achieving a smooth 60fps in a lot of cases. The gap has been narrowed. It even can achieve 8K resolution and sometimes 120fps on TVs that support it, although such a need or desire for these won’t apply to most console users.
However, the need to include two resolution modes can now be almost completely eradicated on PS5 Pro for games that elect to support this function. It's this ability to no longer sacrifice framerate to keep modern AAA games looking stunning – with fancier lighting, shadows, mirroring effects, and what have you – that’s one of the
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Narrowing the gap The counterargument to this is that not every PS5 game has received a Pro patch. Luckily, though, there’s still a relatively large selection of titles that do – over 120, in fact. Pretty much every first-party PlayStation game tries to implement better performance and resolution in at least
Arguably one of the best developers able to harness the unique performance capabilities of PS5 Pro is unsurprisingly Insomniac Games. All its PS5 games – Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales – have introduced a new ‘Performance Pro’ mode by default, seamlessly merging sharper 4K resolution of each game’s Fidelity mode with the silky-smooth 60fps seen previously in Performance. Overall, when it comes to which games do what it can get a little messy, but there’s a decent chance your favourite title has seen at least
I also mentioned it in my intro, but the PS5 Pro including a whopping 2TB of storage by default is a nice luxury. Especially for people who wish to upgrade from their launch PS5 console, which felt a little limiting – even with an 825GB built-in hard drive. It’s no secret that the longer this console generation has gone on, the more space on your console games are needing to take. Better performance and shinier graphics need to come at a cost after all, and that cost is more often than not larger install files. Call of Duty, when will you ever learn you lesson?
The sum of its partsThis aspect is arguably more important with PS5 Pro since it doesn’t come with a disc drive as standard. Yes, rather than offer players freedom of choice in this regard, the PS5 Po welcomes the ‘all-digital’ future with open arms, instead forcing those who want to continue dipping into their physical video game library to purchase an extra disc drive add-on separately. Even a year later I still have mixed feelings about this. As while it definitely falls in line with where the industry is going, it doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Buying second-hand games, or even games from third-party retailers, can still be the best way to save money on what is quickly becoming an expensive hobby. However, if you’re a PlayStation power user or long-time PS Plus subscriber that has already invested in their digital library, the PS5 Pro doesn’t pose too much of an issue in this sense.
With regards to price, it continues to be one of the biggest barriers to upgrading (or even outright purchasing) a PS5 Pro. Compared to the standard PS5’s £479.99 price, the PS5 Pro’s £699.99 RRP is enough to make even the most ardent gamer’s eyes water. However, this most recent Black Friday sales period has proven that you can secure a Pro for as little as £569.99 if you’re willing to be patient and know where to look.
The sad fact is that, due to external economic factors such as inflation, the price of video game consoles has only continued to go up – but this isn’t an issue exclusive to PlayStation.
Overall, then, 12 months on from when it first released, the PS5 Pro largely continues to be in the same position it was in when it arrived. Pitching itself as an enthusiast’s console first and foremost, it absolutely delivers on offering smoother, better performance in most AAA video games that support it, in some cases rivalling the premiere performance offered by a lot of mid-level PC rigs. As such, I’d say it’s fulfilled the promise it initially set out to achieve.
PSSR is an impressive implementation of AI tech that has made my 4K 60fps dreams a reality, while other elements of visual flair like raytracing brings playing on PlayStation more in line with the luxury experience I’ve come to expect on PC. With well over 120 titles now supported, purchasing a PS5 Pro is only becoming a more worthy investment by the day. It’s just an investment that won’t be for everybody, and is still more likely reserved for the most devoted PlayStation users.