Sony this week revealed the PlayStation 5 Pro, a more powerful version of its popular game console, which will hit stores this November at the nail-chewingly high price of $1200.

The online reaction was immediate and negative, with many questioning the added value of the device (the regular PS5 is $800), or even criticising Sony for daring to produce such an inessential luxury during a cost-of-living crisis. However, annoying though it may be for people with PS5s to see a slightly superior device that they don’t want to pay for, the new machine appears to make decent sense and is likely to sell in line with Sony’s expectations.

The PlayStation 5 Pro will not be a scintillating proposition for the overwhelming majority of existing PS5 owners.

The PlayStation 5 has only been on the market for four years, so it would be unrealistic to expect a quantum leap in performance at any price, or for Sony to sell a machine with noticeably more power at a sub-$1000 price point. But the PS5 Pro is not designed to be a successor to the PS5; think of it as more like the Pro model of an iPhone.

In a nine-minute presentation, Sony’s Mark Cerny (lead architect of the PS5 and PS5 Pro) said the company believed the standard PS5 delivered a high level of performance, but the Pro was designed to address the requests of the most demanding developers and players. It has an updated graphics processor that results in 45 per cent faster rendering, an advanced ray tracing pipeline for more realistic lighting and reflections that have less of an impact on performance, and support for Sony’s own AI upscaling solution. Aside........

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