For a while after it launched, I never felt like the PlayStation 5 Pro ever actually came out. You could argue Sony hasn't been promoting it well. The initial Ghost of Yotei reveal took place in a September 2024 State of Play, yet its trailer didn't include Pro footage, and the accompanying PS Blog post makes no mention of whether or not the game would support it. At that point, the Pro was mere days old - but you'd think the first major first-party title to be announced after the Pro's reveal would, you know, reference it?

Almost one year after Yotei, we got our first look at Saros gameplay in a September 2025 State of Play, which likewise had zero Pro footage of the sci-fi shooter. Housemarque, for its part, did confirm that Saros will be enhanced for PS5 Pro at the game's initial reveal earlier that year in a February 2025 State of Play. Fast forward to July, when it came time for Yotei's big gameplay debut, Sony gave it its own State of Play… and that, too, featured no mention of the Pro.

One could argue that the PS5 Pro's lack of a blanket, system-wide enhancement mode that benefits every PS5 game is a strange omission. The PS4 Pro had its own Boost Mode, and it helped almost every game released prior to its introduction. Yes, some games do benefit from the increase in power, but the boost is not as universal as it was on the PS4 Pro.

We could argue endlessly whether Sony's console needed a mid-generation upgrade to begin with, but for those who only learn about upcoming PlayStation games through State of Play, Sony was happy - for a while - to not bring much attention to the Pro.

Image credit: Insomniac

Lately, however, we've been increasingly seeing 'Captured on PS5 Pro' pop up in the lower third of many game trailers. This is almost entirely confined to footage shown during Sony's own State of Play showcases, so it makes sense. As we're about to see, however, this hasn't always been the case.

In order to actually test if we weren't just imagining things, we've gone back to watch all State of Play livestreams from the time since the PS5 Pro was first announced, all the way to the present day. No well-adjusted person would willingly do that, but we nevertheless wanted to definitively determine if there's been any change to the number of instances the Pro has been brought up since then.

The first State of Play ever to make mention of the upgraded console was the 24th September, 2024 show. Lead system architect, Mark Cerny, took the stage in a dedicated segment that explicitly extolled the virtues of the Pro. Cerny then walked through a few of the games with confirmed support for the then-upcoming console, all of which with a custom 'PS5 Pro Enhanced' banner that we're never going to see again.

Then it's onto a supercut featuring some major first and third-party titles, including The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Assassin's Creed Shadows, and several more.

One thing that hasn't changed is that all State of Play livestreams begin with a disclaimer that all footage to follow is "captured on a PS5 console or PS5 developer kit unless otherwise noted." That technically holds true, in that the Pro is a PS5 console, but it might've made sense to reference the Pro in the opening blurb.

Image credit: Sony Santa Monica, PlayStation.

Regardless, the 12th February, 2025 State of Play is up next, and it's the first one to bring us the now-common 'Captured on PS5 Pro' text, which is always laid over black bars at the bottom. That show ended up having a total of four games with Pro footage.

That's followed up by the 4th June, 2025 State of Play, with only three instances of Pro gameplay, the lowest so far. September 2025 rolls around and we get another State of Play. The total is now back to four games showing Pro footage.

The first State of Play this year took place on February 12th, and that's where things really ramped up. By the end, we'd been treated to a whopping eight titles showing Pro footage - including, inexplicably, 2D sidescroller God of War Sons of Sparta.

All of that brings us to the most recent State of Play that aired on June 2nd, the second such showcase so far this year. The total is down slightly to seven, only one below the February event.

So, here we are, closing in on the second anniversary of the launch of the PS5 Pro, and we're only just now starting to see it brought up frequently. The data confirms what we suspected: more and more games are showing Pro footage than ever before.

It is, however, hard to argue that the Pro has, so far, had anything but a muted response.

Image credit: Sony / Remedy Entertainment

From the beginning, the sentiment among hardware enthusiasts, and those of us who follow the industry closely, has been 'why do we need this?' The base PS5 is far more powerful (relative to contemporary hardware) than the PS4 ever was. The PS4 (and Xbox One) had what were essentially laptop chips designed for efficiency and not power. Their specs are the result of a timid Sony and Microsoft, uncertain if anyone even wanted a home console any more. It simply didn't make sense to invest in acquiring top-shelf specs.

Once that generation took off, however, it quickly became clear that console specs were well below what they needed to be. Enter, the mid-generation upgrade, which many at the time felt was necessary if the two consoles were to even last the usual eight or so years run of a generation.

The PS5, and by extension its own mid-gen upgrade, exist in an entirely different reality. Their innards are more capable, and because games take so long to make now compared to the previous generation, many developers simply haven't shipped anywhere near the volume of games they used to. Naughty Dog hasn't shipped a single PS5 game that isn't a remaster. Sony Santa Monica shipped a single one - which had a PS4 version. Sucker Punch? One native PS5 game. Insomniac edges them out with three titles, including one that also had a PS4 port.

It's hard to say whether the fact we're seeing more games showing PS5 Pro footage has more to do with Sony's desire to, well, justify the console's existence to the millions who tune in to State of Play, or if it's simply a side effect of this generation being in its sixth year.

There's also the price conversation. The PS4 Pro launched at the same price as the base PS4, and some even saw it as Sony's stealthy way of "protecting" that price point. The PS5 Pro was (and remains) more expensive than the standard PS5, both at launch and today. Because neither console ever received a price cut (only increases!), the Pro will never overtake the base model as the default option like it did the previous generation.

Image credit: Amazon Game Studios

Consumer electronics have been going up in price universally on an almost quarterly basis, and Sony certainly hasn't been shy about bumping up the price tag of its entire hardware line-up multiple times.

The next generation of consoles may well need to be pushed back. Sony likely isn't comfortable with the idea of pitching a base model of its next-gen console at something like $1200 or $1400, so it could be that the platform holder simply wants to reposition the Pro as an anchor for these next few years, while the company figures out a way around the AI-induced chip shortage. The answer is likely a combination of all those points.

All that said, we're willing to guess there won't be any more State of Play shows this year, given that it's probably going to be a ghost town from October until the end of the year. If we do, however, we'll no doubt see even more Pro footage. How long until every game in a State of Play is showing only Pro footage? Place your bets now!