For a while after it first launched, I had the impression that the PlayStation 5 Pro still hadn’t truly arrived in the real world. You could argue that Sony didn’t go about promoting it in a meaningful way. The original reveal for Ghost of Yotei surfaced during the September 2024 State of Play, yet the trailer didn’t include any Pro gameplay, and the accompanying PS Blog post also doesn’t say whether the game will support it. At that point, the Pro was only a handful of days old—so wouldn’t you expect the first notable first-party release announced after the Pro reveal to acknowledge it?
Almost a year after Yotei, we finally saw Saros in action during a September 2025 State of Play, and that showcase likewise offered no Pro footage for the sci-fi shooter. Still, Housemarque did confirm that Saros would be tuned for PS5 Pro when it was first revealed earlier that year, during a February 2025 State of Play. Then July arrived for Yotei’s big gameplay moment, and Sony provided it its own State of Play… but once again, there was no mention of the Pro.
It’s reasonable to view the lack of a broad, system-wide enhancement approach—one that would benefit every PS5 game—as a strange misstep. The PS4 Pro came with its own Boost Mode, which boosted nearly every game released before it arrived. Sure, a few titles can take advantage of the added headroom, but the overall adoption doesn’t feel as widespread as it was on the PS4 Pro.
We can certainly debate whether Sony even needed a mid-generation upgrade in the first place, but for anyone who only learned about upcoming PlayStation releases through State of Play, Sony appeared—at least for a time—less interested in drawing attention to the Pro.
More recently, though, we’ve been spotting the phrase “Captured on PS5 Pro” in the lower third of many trailers with increasing frequency. It seems to show up almost entirely in clips Sony shares during its own State of Play broadcasts, which is understandable. Still, as we’ll see, that hasn’t always been the pattern.
To be sure we weren’t just noticing things that weren’t really there, we went back and reviewed every State of Play livestream from the moment the PS5 Pro was unveiled through today. No one in their right mind would choose to do something like that on purpose, but we wanted to confirm whether the appearance of Pro footage has shifted over time.
The first State of Play to directly reference the upgraded hardware was the September 24, 2024 broadcast. Mark Cerny, lead system architect, stepped on stage for a section that clearly outlined what the Pro would improve. After that, Cerny highlighted several games with confirmed support for the upcoming system—each tagged with a custom “PS5 Pro Enhanced” banner that we’re unlikely to see in that same form again.
Next came a compilation highlighting major first- and third-party releases, including The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and several others.
One consistent detail: every State of Play stream begins with a brief disclaimer that the footage that follows is “captured on a PS5 console or PS5 developer kit unless otherwise noted.” Technically, that statement is accurate, since the Pro is a PS5 console—though it might have felt more appropriate to call out the Pro directly in the opening.
That said, the February 12, 2025 State of Play is the next milestone—where we first see the familiar “Captured on PS5 Pro” label, shown over black bars at the bottom. In that event, there were four games in total that displayed Pro footage.
After that came the June 4, 2025 State of Play, which logged only three appearances of Pro gameplay—at the time, the smallest total yet. Then, as September 2025 rolled around, Sony hosted another State of Play, and the number of Pro-featured games rose back to four.
This year’s first State of Play took place on February 12, and that’s where things noticeably changed. When it ended, we counted an impressive eight titles showing Pro gameplay—including, unexpectedly, the 2D side-scrolling entry God of War Sons of Sparta.
All of that brings us to the most recent State of Play, aired on June 2—the second showcase of the year. The total dipped slightly to seven, which is just one fewer than the February event.
So we’re now heading toward the second anniversary of the PS5 Pro’s release, and only recently are we seeing it brought up more often. The numbers match our expectations: more games are displaying Pro footage than ever before.
Even so, it’s hard to argue that the Pro has generated much excitement up to this point.
From the start, the dominant view among hardware fans and people tracking the industry has been, “why do we even need this?” The regular PS5 is already far more capable (compared with what the PS4 offered at the time) than the PS4 ever was. The PS4 (and Xbox One) relied on chips that were essentially designed for laptop-style efficiency more than for raw performance. Their specs reflected a cautious approach from Sony and Microsoft—uncertain whether there was still enough demand for a home console. It simply didn’t feel like a smart move to chase top-tier specifications.
Once that generation took off,
Nevertheless,
It soon became clear that the console specifications lagged well behind what was actually needed. That’s where the mid-cycle refresh comes in—something many people at the time viewed as crucial if the two systems were going to last through the usual eight-year span for a console generation.
The PS5, along with its own mid-generation iteration, is operating in a different league altogether. Its underlying hardware is more capable, and because game development now takes much longer than it did in the previous generation, a lot of teams simply haven’t released anything like the same volume of titles. Naughty Dog hasn’t released a single PS5 game that isn’t a remaster. Sony Santa Monica managed to put out one title, and it also came with a PS4 edition. Sucker Punch? Just one original PS5 release. Insomniac, meanwhile, is ahead of the pack with three titles, including one that also had a PS4 version.
It’s hard to say whether the growing number of games showing PS5 Pro gameplay is driven by Sony’s desire to defend the console’s relevance to the millions tuning into State of Play, or whether it simply reflects the fact that this generation is already in its sixth year.
Then there’s the matter of pricing. The PS4 Pro launched at the same price as the standard PS4, and some saw it as a careful way for Sony to “buffer” that price tier. The PS5 Pro, on the other hand, costs more than the base PS5—both at launch and still today. Since neither system ever received a price cut (only increases!), the Pro will never become the default option in the way the older generation’s model could, rather than staying a step ahead of the standard purchase.
Consumer electronics have increased in cost across nearly every quarter, and Sony has clearly not been shy about raising prices across its hardware lineup multiple times.
The next console wave may simply need to arrive later. Sony likely doesn’t feel comfortable unveiling a base model for its next-generation system at $1200 or $1400, so the company may prefer to keep the Pro in the spotlight for the next few years while it looks for a way around the AI-related chip shortfall. The answer may well be a mix of all these reasons.
That said, we suspect there won’t be any additional State of Play events this year, since the schedule is likely to be pretty light from October through the end of the year. If we do get another one, though, you can be sure there will be even more Pro-focused footage. So how long do you think it will take before every game shown during a State of Play runs exclusively with Pro footage? Make your predictions now!