The PS5 is currently doing incredibly well. Sales for the console have been impressive, doubling those of Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and Series S. Despite this success, it’s unlikely Sony is resting on its laurels. Fresh updates to the PS5 could well be on the way, and if they are, Sony’s planning department is almost certainly working on them right now. Whilst some might be already dreaming about the PS6, we have plenty more time to go with the PS5.
If the PS4 generation was anything to go by, we could be getting two new consoles in the PS5 lineup. The PS5 Pro could be a souped-up, more powerful version of the standard PS5 with better specs and more bells and whistles. If you’re on a tighter budget, the PS5 Slim could cut back some of the excesses of the Pro, but pack the PS5’s specs into a tighter form factor. Let’s take a look at some of the rumours currently swirling around these consoles, when their release dates might be, and what we currently know about them.
PS5 Pro
Let’s start off with the PS5 Pro, the PS5’s beefier, more powerful cousin (potentially, anyway). First off, it’s important to say Sony hasn’t announced anything official to do with this console. However, there are some rumours out there that could tell us something about what the console’s specs could look like.
What are the current PS5 Pro rumours?
According to YouTuber Moore’s Law Is Dead, the PS5 Pro is on the way. The channel gives a prospective PS5 Pro release date of 2023-2024, listing a price of somewhere between $600 and $700. According to Moore’s Law Is Dead, we can expect the PS5 Pro to target 8K gaming as its standard, with graphical workarounds like checkerboarding making up for a potential lack of power to render native 8K.
This would make sense with what we might expect from a potential PS5 Pro. Seeing as current PlayStation hardware is targeting 4K gaming at 60fps, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for the PS5 Pro to look to 8K as an iterative upgrade. In addition, the inflated price would make sense; it’s a more powerful console, so it’ll set you back more. The release schedule would also work out, as the PS4 Pro released around three years after the base PS4.
However, there are also reasons not to believe this rumour. Chief among them is the lack of semiconductors available to console manufacturers. Right now, there’s a serious problem with semiconductor supply; that’s what’s causing PS5 shortages, as well as Xbox Series X shortages, graphics card supply issues, and lots of other electronics issues in between. If Sony had the chips, it would be manufacturing more PS5 consoles, and it would need a huge amount of chips in order to make PS5 Pros a reality.
There’s also the fact that the $600-700 price tag is somewhat outlandish. Sony aims to make its consoles “loss leaders” these days, which means it makes a loss on hardware sales and makes up for that loss with peripherals, games, and other addons. Pricing a console at $600 is madness, frankly; although it makes sense to charge more for the PS5 Pro, that price tag seems insane.
Finally, there’s the fact that 8K tech isn’t really a reality for many people right now. Sure, 8K TVs are becoming more and more popular, but this display standard still hasn’t been adopted by the public at large. For 8K to be worthwhile for Sony, vast numbers of people would need 8K TVs in their houses, and we’re just not seeing those adoption numbers yet due to high prices and a lack of choice for the consumer.
All of these features sound enticing for the PS5 Pro – and we’d probably be looking at a larger hard drive, too, with around 2TB of storage space for more games – but the fact is that right now, the PS5 Pro is looking like something of a pipe dream. We’ll see what Sony has in store, but it’s very unlikely that the company will change its current strategy, given the lack of hardware availability.
PS5 Slim
Next, we have the PS5 Slim, which is an altogether easier and more realistic console to predict. The PS5 Slim would naturally be a smaller, slimmer version of the PS5, and let’s face it; that wouldn’t be difficult to achieve, at least conceptually. The PS5 is a beefy machine, and fitting it underneath TV tables has proven difficult for many gamers. Are there any rumours out there about a PS5 Slim, though?
What are the current PS5 Slim rumours?
Despite wishlists, mockups, and concepts describing what the PS5 Slim could look like, there aren’t any concrete rumours swirling around regarding what the console could look like. This is probably for the same reason that Sony isn’t considering a PS5 Pro yet; it’s hard enough just to get our hands on a PS5, let alone any further iterations on the console. Here’s what we want from the PS5 Slim, though, in handy bullet point form.
- Smaller form factor: This one goes without saying. The PS5 Slim desperately needs a smaller form factor, because the current console is absolutely massive, to put it mildly.
- Same specs as the PS5: Obviously, a PS5 Slim would have the same specs and capabilities as the base PS5, but pack all of that power into a smaller chassis, which is where the big ask would come in.
- More storage space: We know this is a big request, but we’d love more storage space in the PS5 Slim. We’re struggling to fit all of our games onto the default SSD, so more storage would be nice, please, Sony.
- A 2023 launch: We’d really love the PS5 Slim release date to be 2023, although we know this is a faraway dream. It could launch alongside the more powerful PS5 Pro, although as we’ve already established, this is highly unlikely due to chip shortages.
We hope you’ve enjoyed our look at what a PS5 Pro or PS5 Slim could look like. What do you want to see from the consoles? Would you buy them if Sony released them?
