Op 7 november verschijnt de PlayStation 5 Pro en daarmee komt Sony als enige deze generatie met een mid-gen upgrade daar waar Microsoft het bij de Xbox Series X en S blijft houden. In een interview met Variety heeft hardware CEO Hideaki Nishino aangegeven dat de ontwikkeling van de PS5 Pro al begon voordat de PlayStation 5 was uitgebracht.

In het interview zegt hij dat uiteindelijk zo’n 20% van alle PlayStation 4 gebruikers overgestapt zijn naar de PlayStation 4 Pro. Dat was genoeg reden om hetzelfde te doen met de PlayStation 5, want de console heeft potentie. Daarom zijn ze al voor de release van de PlayStation 5 begonnen met de PS5 Pro.

“We have done Pro in the last generation. We learned a lot from there. When we were selling PS4 Pro, in addition to the PS4, 20% of customers actually got the PS4 Pro. It was high end, it was premium tier. So there are potential users acquiring those kind of units. Interestingly enough, it was not just about highly engaged users – actually, new users came to PlayStation to get PS4 Pro, as well.

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“So we started working on PS5 Pro even before PS5 launched — it was another five-year project for us. So there was a conversation around whether we wanted to do another Pro or not. But the main thing was, there are technologies we can grow up in three years time or five years time. So the innovation and technology advancement is more quicker in a modern world. 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 the game console segment range. So that’s the vision.”

Hier voegt Nishino nog aan toe dat Sony altijd een stap vooruit denkt, omdat ze zo weten wat ze in de toekomst willen doen. Dit stelt Sony in de positie om aanhoudend een cyclus te creëren.

“We’re kind of happy to see [that] most engaged gaming users are interested in the PS5 Pro, and then I’m pretty sure new users will grab the PS5 Pro as well. If it’s the PlayStation you want to get, that’s the thing. So that’s where we designed the generation at this moment.

We design everything with having one ahead in our mind. It’s not like we just make a next step and we don’t know about the two steps ahead. That’s not our way of working, because we need to make sure that the 10-year-old generation cycle continues to be going as well.”