News 'It Felt Like Putting New Glasses On,' Claims First PS5 Pro Hands On

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We haven't had a chance to play around with PS5 Pro yet – in fact, no one in the media aside from CNET has. Sony gave the exclusive story to the American site, and invited the outlet to its headquarters in Foster City to try out a dozen or so games. Many of those demos were setup in side-by-side scenarios, with the original PS5 versions running next to their upgraded counterparts.

"It felt like putting new glasses on," reporter Scott Stein wrote of the Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth demo. "[The PS5 Pro version] popped compared to the fuzzier graphics on the existing PS5 version. Everything was sharper, and still 60fps smooth." You may remember that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth had some significant image quality issues in performance mode at launch, so it sounds like the PS5 Pro is capable of mostly eliminating those.

The CNET report goes on to describe Stein's first-hand experience with games like The Last of Us 2, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and Marvel's Spider-Man 2. All three of these titles leverage a "best of both worlds" approach, offering the visual clarity of their fidelity modes and the responsiveness of their performance modes.

"It feels great," Stein continued. "Just running through the grass in the The Last of Us, or looking out at waterfalls in Horizon, was lovely. Spider-Man 2 and Ratchet & Clank just felt a lot better to play at smoother, higher framerates on a big canvas." He did caveat, however: "Many of the upgrades were on the subtle side. Sometimes I had to stop and check side by side to appreciate the difference."

But the game that impressed Stein the most was Gran Turismo 7, running in two permutations: 8K on an 80-inch display and 4K with full gameplay raytracing enabled. "I was so hypnotised by looking at car finishes that I kept crashing," he wrote of the overall experience. Polyphony Digital has always pushed PlayStation hardware boundaries, so it's not a big surprise.

Of course, we hope to bring you our own personal PS5 Pro impressions in the future. The CNET article is interesting, because it's largely positive about the overall experience, but does stress that these upgrades will only appeal to a very specific demographic. Sony seems to understand that, to be fair, and with a mind-blowing $700 price point attached, that's probably for the best.