Lets talk PS5 Pro (and other gaming news goodness)

Details for the PS5 Pro Console

On Tuesday the 10th of September Sony held a technical presentation revealing the details of the
upcoming PS5 Pro console. It’s set to release on November 7th of this year and preorders will
open on the 26th of September. Alongside the technical specifications, Sony revealed that the
PS5 Pro will cost a whopping $1199 AUD.

So, what is the PS5 Pro offering to justify that mammoth price tag?

Well, the biggest improvement is higher-fidelity graphics and smoother frame rates which
they’re promising to deliver with a bigger GPU, Advanced Ray Tracing, and some AI-driven
upscaling. Storage is also getting an upgrade. Where the original console came with 825GB of
space, the PS5 Pro features a 2TB SSD.

There are some downgrades though. The PS5 Pro does not have a disc drive so if you have a
collection of physical games you’ll need to invest in a separate drive for $159 AUD. The PS5 Pro
is also missing the vertical stand that came with previous versions of the console, and yes you
can buy it separately but that will drive the price even further up.

Speaking of Sony….

If you’ve been paying attention to the games industry this year, there’s no way you’ve missed the
huge number of layoffs hitting studios big and small. It’s a depressing trend that’s forced a lot of
talented people out of the industry, but not everyone is sympathetic.

As a guest on a recent episode of My Perfect Console podcast Chris Deering, the ex-president of
Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, disputed that the trend is a result of corporate greed.
“I don’t think it’s fair to say that the resulting layoffs have been greed. If the money isn’t coming
in from the consumers on the last game, it’s going to be hard to justify spending the money for
the next game.”

There’s definitely truth to that, and Chris wouldn’t have come under fire if he’d stopped there,
but he didn’t stop there. “It’s like the pandemic,” he continued “You’re going to have to figure out
how to get through it, drive an Uber, or whatever. Find a cheap place to live and go to the beach
for a year.”

Rockstar Games slammed for Low Offer to Musicians.

In a post on Twitter, X, Martyn Ware from the British band Heaven 17 shared that Rockstar
Games had contacted him about using the song Temptation in GTA6. He was excited about the
opportunity until he saw what they were offering. $7500 for a buyout of any future royalties from
the game forever.

Considering GTA 5 has made over $8.6 billion in revenue, the offer does seem quite low, but
many people were quick to argue that the exposure from being in a GTA game was more than
worth it. To those people, Martyn only had one thing to say: “Ah, but think of the exposure… Go
fuck yourself”

Baldurs Gate 3 Gets a Big Update

Late last week, Larian Studios dropped a new update for Baldur’s Gate 3. Alongside typical
gameplay improvements and bug fixes, Patch 7 brings changes to honour mode, improved split
screen, and added an in-game mod manager.

OH! And a bunch of evil ending cinematics if that’s your thing. They even renamed the “Show
Cinematic Nudity” toggle to “Show Sexual and Violent Cinematics” so people can avoid “a few
select moments of extreme violence that may be distressing to some” in these new endings.
While Larian has said that Patch 7 isn’t the last they’ve got in store for Baldur’s Gate 3, future
patches will likely be a lot smaller as the team focuses on their next project.

Upcoming Game Releases

• Mexico, 1921. A deep slumber. is coming to PC & Mac on September 13th.
• Also on September 13th, Evotinction will release on PS5, PS4, & PC
• On the 16th, The Spell Brigade leaves early access on PC.
• And on the 17th we’ll see The Plucky Squire release to PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and the Switch.

That’s all, this week, in gaming news.