PS5 Pro is trending on social media today, thanks to a report about a “leak” suggesting a new model is coming. To be clear up front, I believe no actual part of this is the case, even if it’s a safe bet a mid-gen refresh is coming at some point this console generation.

Among the highlights of this supposed PS5 Pro model via Moore’s Law Is Dead:

• Released in late 2023-2024
• Costs $600-700
• Targeting 4K/8K Gaming

First of all, the problem is obvious. Even if 2023-2024 could be a somewhat reasonable date for a potential mid-gen update for the current console generation, that has almost certainly been pushed back by the pandemic and the global component shortages which have made all new-gen consoles, especially PS5, incredibly hard to find. These are shortages that are meant to continue well into next year, possibly even through all of 2022, and then once supply finally meets demand, the Pro is released? I don’t think so. Sony is selling PS5s as fast as they can make them, and there’s simply no reason to step on their own toes and “devalue” the current PS5 any sooner than they need to. So I expect a “normal” refresh update to be pushed.

In the year of our lord 2021 (or 2022-2024), no one, especially not Sony, is going to price a new console at $600-700. We have heard rumors about sky-high prices for the PS4 Pro, Xbox One X, PS5 and Xbox Series X before the launches of each, and yet Sony and Microsoft always came to the same conclusion: You cannot price a console above $500, no matter how powerful it is, in the current state of the market. Even Sony with its $70 games now won’t make that leap, as they will never live down pricing the PS3 at $600 at launch.

8K gaming? 8K gaming barely exists on even high-end PCs right now in most instances, and the cost of getting a home console there would be hilarious. Not to mention 8K TV adoption is more or less non-existent at this point. There are many different predictions about this, but one from Strategy Analytics projected 8K adoption would be just 3% of the TV market by 2023.

I am not saying that PlayStation will never release a PS5 Pro this generation, or whatever they’ll call it this time. I am saying that time window, price and 8K target makes absolutely no sense, and this rumor is nothing.

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