While many are voicing their doubts regarding the need for the PlayStation 5 Pro, the console is somewhat needed to push visuals and performance forward for current generation games, as the PlayStation 5 having some sort of “untapped” potential is just an internet myth.
Speaking on X/Twitter, well-known AMD leaker Kepler commented on the yet-to-be-revealed mid-generation hardware from Sony and the untapped potential of the base model, saying that this isn’t the 90s or 2000s anymore when consoles’ hardware was esoteric like the Nintendo 64 and the PlayStation 3.
Over the last few decades, hardware vendors have somewhat homogenized the design of their products, converging on similar designs that barely have any difference. According to Kepler, there’s very little difference between modern CPUs from Intel and AMD and GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD, and any optimization done for one vendor essentially applies to all. At the same time, tools used by developers have improved massively over the years and can extract most potential performance with ease. The days of “to the metal” optimization are long gone because it’s largely unnecessary nowadays, so there’s really no untapped potential for the current generation consoles, making the PlayStation 5 Pro somewhat of a necessity to bring visuals and performance forward in the console space.
Over the last few decades all hardware vendors have converged to very similar designs.
There is barely any difference in a CPU from Intel vs AMD vs Apple or a GPU from NVIDIA vs AMD vs Intel these days.
Any optimization for one vendor applies to all others.
— Kepler (@Kepler_L2) April 15, 2024
Not to mention that all the tools used by devs (e.g compilers) have improved massively over the years and can extract most of potential performance with ease.
Nobody does “to the metal” optimization these days because it’s a) too hard b) largely unnecessary.
— Kepler (@Kepler_L2) April 15, 2024
To see a real jump in visual fidelity, however, the next generation of consoles will be needed, as the PlayStation 5 Pro will not be a massive leap over the base model. Still, the improved GPU, better ray tracing, and the PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution upscaler should provide a nice boost that will tide over console players until the release of the PlayStation 6. While we still don’t know when the console will be released, it shouldn’t be too far off in the future, as all PlayStation 5 games going into certification from August 2024 are expected to feature PlayStation 5 Pro compatibility.