We now have a new rumor suggesting there’s a new piece of PlayStation 5 hardware coming, and this time it’s the kind that people want.
As reported by Insider Gaming, there is a new PlayStation 5 Pro that Sony is in active development on at this very moment.
This is not the same as the other rumored PlayStation 5 SKUs we reported on in the past. It is not the Slim PlayStation 5, and it is also not the disc-upgradeable PlayStation 5 that Insider Gaming themselves reported on.
Insider Gaming cites their source on the disc-upgradeable PlayStation 5, that it is “just the beginning of new hardware coming to PlayStation users this generation.”
Insider Gaming could not confirm more details on what this PlayStation 5 Pro is going to have. But independently of this rumor, keen observers spotted Mark Cerny filing a new patent for technology that will improve ray tracing performance in video games.
If the rumor is true, it confirms that Sony has decided that upgrades for their PlayStation consoles in the middle of their life cycles are what make sense for their business moving forward.
Their previous console, the PlayStation 4, had an upgrade to a PlayStation 4 Pro in the middle of its life cycle. That PlayStation 4 Pro did not have any games exclusive to itself. So, all PlayStation 4 games could run on any model or SKU of the PlayStation 4.
What the PlayStation 4 Pro offered was better performance by way of better internal hardware. While not everyone would be able to avail of this hardware, or for that matter, would be interested in such an upgrade, it kept sales for the console high.
To add to that, Sony found a new way to sell hardware after they reached a point in the PlayStation 4’s life cycle where it was no longer selling each console unit at a loss.
There are a lot of possibilities Sony could explore with a PlayStation 5 Pro, beyond just beefing up the CPU and GPU. For example, Sony could offer it with higher internal memory. While that would raise the price of that particular model way up, there is definitely a market there for PlayStation owners who want to play their games uncompressed, at their best performance. Imagine a PlayStation 4 with 4 TB or possibly even more storage in their console to hoard games with.
They could also make a combination PlayStation 4 / PlayStation VR 2. Having the VR hardware incorporated into the PlayStation would make for a leaner package, that would be easier to carry around, and just be more convenient.
If Insider Gaming’s sources are correct, we won’t take long to find out if this rumor, and all the other rumored PlayStation 5 SKUs, are true in due time.
