The PS5 Pro had a truly shocking development timeline

The PlayStation 5 Pro launches November 7th with a hefty price tag of $700. The Pro is launching four years after the PlayStation 5 first made its debut in 2020. The PS5 Pro features a brand-new GPU, which has 67 percent more compute units than the base PS5 console, designed to help games run faster and look even better with enhanced ray tracing capabilities. But, what may shock you is how long Sony was developing the console for.

In an interview with Variety, Sony Interactive Entertainment Co-CEO Hideaki Nishino revealed that the PS5 Pro was a five-year project for the company, and that it was thinking about it even before the launch of the PS5. “It was another five-year project for us. So there was a conversation around whether we wanted to do another Pro or not,” Nishino said in the Variety interview. “But the main thing was, there are technologies we can grow up in three years time or five years time.”

Given how fast technology and computer innovation is nowadays, it makes sense that Sony was thinking about the PS5 Pro so far ahead in the future. But, on the other hand, I’ll admit it’s kind of crazy to think it took five years to develop it, especially given its rather tone deaf announcement.

Sony CEO says they learned from the PS4 Pro

Nishino says that the PS4 Pro proved there was interest in a higher-end console

Sony/Pocket-Lint

The PS5 Pro isn’t the first “Pro” PlayStation console. That crown goes to the PS4 Pro, which came out in November 2016, three years after the base PS4 in 2013. Nishino says the PS4 Pro influenced their decision to go ahead with the PS5 Pro.

“When we were selling PS4 Pro, in addition to the PS4, 20% of customers actually got the PS4 Pro,” Nishino said. “It was high end, it was premium tier. So there are potential users acquiring those kind of units.”

20 percent may not seem like a lot, but given how many PS4 units Sony sold, 20 percent isn’t really that bad of a margin at all. Nishino also mentions that it wasn’t just highly engaged users getting the PS4 Pro, it was also new users coming to PlayStation for the first time to get it. Which I can actually personally attest to, as I never owned an original PS4, my introduction to the console was through the PS4 Pro which I bought to play Spider-Man when it first came out in 2018.

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Nishino also elaborated on the vision of the PS5 Pro, saying that consoles aren’t like PCs. “Phones are updating every year, PCs are updating every year. I don’t think we’d go every year updates, but there are things we can package together to bring the greatest things into game console segment range. So that’s the vision.”

The PS5 Pro is launching just before the start of the holiday season on November 7th. It’ll be interesting to see how the console sells over the holidays, and into the new year. The PS5 Pro may come into the spotlight even more as the highly-anticipated GTA 6 approaches in 2025, as players seek the best possible way to play this hotly-anticipated title.

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