Sony's beefed-up PlayStation 5 Pro in 2H 2024: ready for GTA 6 in 2025, says CNBC analyst

Sony's upgraded PlayStation 5 Pro console has been somewhat confirmed by analysts to CNBC, which reports the Japanese company is "likely to release a refreshed version of the PlayStation 5 this year".

2

The analysts added that the "souped-up" console -- awww, come on, guys, I've been saying beefed-up -- would be ready for the release of Grand Theft Auto 6 in 2025, which is one of the decade's "most hotly anticipated games". After a bunch of rumors, lots that you've read here, analysts are "now expecting a PlayStation 5 Pro from Sony".

Serkan Toto, the CEO of Tokyo-based games consultancy firm Kantan Games, told CNBC: "There seems to be a broad consensus in the game industry that Sony is indeed preparing a launch of a PS5 Pro in the second half of 2024. And Sony will want to make sure to have a great piece of hardware ready when GTA VI hits in 2025, a launch that will be a shot in the arm for the entire gaming industry".

• Read more: PlayStation 5 Pro console rumored to cost just $499 without the disc drive
• Read more: PlayStation 5 Pro: 4nm Zen 2 CPU, 56 GPU cores, faster 18Gbps GDDR6 memory
• Read more: PlayStation 5 Pro: AI tech, 60% faster than PS5, November 2024 release
• Read more: PlayStation 5 Pro specs: CPU clocks higher, heavily beefed-up GPU in 2024
• Read more: Sony's beefed-up PlayStation 5 Pro should play GTA 6 at a smoother 60FPS

The analyst is right; the release of the souped-up PlayStation 5 Pro is going to be massive, driving huge sales because of Rockstar's massive release in 2025 of Grand Theft Auto 6. I wrote about this last year after Grand Theft Auto 6 was announced and teased that it would be an even better visual treat for the timed console exclusive on the higher-end PlayStation 5 Pro console.

Sony should be -- but they might not be -- working directly with Rockstar on getting a 60FPS mode into Grand Theft Auto 6; it would feel like a gigantic waste of the most powerful console ever without it. Sure, the PC could handle 60FPS in Grand Theft Auto 6, but it would need some AI-upscaling help from the likes of NVIDIA and DLSS and a powerful next-gen GeForce RTX 50 series GPU.

But, on a beefed-up Sony PlayStation 5 Pro console, it would be fantastic -- a system seller, in fact -- to have GTA 6, the biggest game of all time, running at 60FPS on the fastest console in the world. 30FPS... that is going to be hard to swallow for a lot of gamers that have been getting used to 60FPS gaming in performance mode on current-gen consoles, let alone PC gamers.