When Sony launched the PS5 Pro in late 2024 at AU$1,199, it was met with a predictably divided reception. Critics questioned whether the premium over the standard PS5 was justifiable; supporters pointed to its dedicated AI upscaling hardware and promised visual gains. Now, with a substantial software update arriving in March, Sony is making a stronger case that the investment has legs.
According to a post on the PlayStation Blog by Mark Cerny, the lead architect behind the PS4, PS5 and PS5 Pro, the console will receive a significantly reworked version of its PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) technology. PSSR is an AI library that analyses game images pixel by pixel as it upscales them, and has already been used to boost the effective resolution of over 50 titles on PS5 Pro to date. The incoming version is not a routine refinement. The upgraded PSSR uses a completely different neural network and algorithm compared to the original version, according to Cerny.
The algorithm and neural network used in the new PSSR stem from Sony's Project Amethyst partnership with AMD. Through AMD's FSR 4 upscaling technology, PC gamers have already seen the benefits of that collaboration. With the updated PSSR, Sony says it is delivering the very latest of this co-developed technology with a further six months of refinement for PS5 Pro players. It is worth being precise about what that means technically. Sony clarifies that the update will not bring direct FSR 4 support to the console; the PS5 Pro uses its own purpose-built PSSR upscaling tech, not a dedicated version of FSR 4. The distinction matters: PSSR was tailor-made for the console gaming environment, which typically delivers varying resolution, while AMD's FSR 4 prioritises games with fixed resolution and varying frame rate.
The first game to ship with the improved upscaling is Resident Evil Requiem, which launched on 27 February 2026. Capcom's Masaru Ijuin, Senior Manager in the company's engine development support and foundational technology group, described what the upgraded PSSR makes possible in the game. The game renders each individual strand of the protagonist's hair and beard as a separate polygon, allowing movement in response to body motion and wind, while light behaviour through the hair also changes depending on how individual strands overlap. Capcom says those kinds of fine details are usually harder to upscale cleanly because they are so intricate, but the upgraded PSSR helps preserve that detail, which lets the game hold onto more of its visual texture while still keeping image quality and frame rate high.
Who benefits, and how?
A system software update scheduled for March 2026 will enable the upgraded PSSR for existing PS5 Pro games that currently support the original version. Crucially, players will not need to wait for individual publishers to patch their titles. As long as a game supports base PSSR, the March system update will allow players to force the new version through a manual system setting, similar to how FSR 4 can be forced over PC games that only support FSR 3.1. Sony also looks forward to more news in March, when multiple existing games will upgrade to the improved PSSR natively.
For Australian consumers who paid AU$1,199 for the PS5 Pro, this kind of post-launch software improvement represents exactly the value proposition Sony implicitly promised at launch. The console was positioned as a forward-looking purchase, and a meaningful upgrade to its core technical feature lands on the right side of that expectation. That said, the question of value is not straightforward.
The value question remains live
The PS5 Pro's pricing has been contentious since its announcement. The pricing of the PS5 Pro made it one of the most expensive consoles to be released when accounting for inflation, and the second most-expensive within the PlayStation line following the original PlayStation 3. Consumer reactions at launch were sharply negative in many quarters, and Sony's own president acknowledged the console was targeting a narrower audience of dedicated players prepared to pay for performance gains.
Those on the progressive or consumer-advocacy side of the debate make a fair point: post-launch software improvements, however genuine, do not retroactively resolve the access problem. At AU$1,199, the PS5 Pro sits well beyond the reach of many Australian households under current cost-of-living pressures, and the standard PS5 remains the device through which most players will experience these titles. The upgraded PSSR does not touch the standard PS5 at all.
There is also a legitimate question about how consistently the system-level toggle will perform across the broader game library. There is always the chance of some edge case issues; Silent Hill 2 Remake, for example, launched with a difficult implementation of the original PSSR and needed patching. The March update will be the broader test of how reliably the new algorithm performs outside of a single controlled launch title.
A model for responsible hardware longevity?
Upscaling has become one of the most important tools in modern gaming, allowing consoles to deliver higher resolutions and smoother frame rates without requiring dramatically more powerful hardware. Instead of brute-force rendering every pixel, AI-assisted upscaling reconstructs high-resolution images from lower-resolution frames, with the result being better performance while still delivering near-native visual quality. The Sony-AMD Project Amethyst collaboration represents a commercially interesting model: shared research and development between a console manufacturer and a GPU company, with improvements flowing in both directions across platforms.
From a fiscal accountability perspective, this kind of cross-industry partnership is worth noting. Rather than requiring consumers to buy entirely new hardware to access better performance, Sony is extending the life of existing devices through software. That is a more consumer-responsible approach than the annual hardware refresh cycles that have characterised the smartphone industry, even if the initial outlay for the PS5 Pro remains steep.
The honest assessment is this: the upgraded PSSR is a genuinely meaningful technical improvement, built on serious collaborative research, and it will benefit a library of more than 50 games at no additional cost. For the Australian PS5 Pro owners who made the investment, that is good news. Whether the console represented value for money in the first place remains a question each buyer will answer differently, and reasonable people will continue to disagree. What the March update does confirm is that Sony's commitment to improving the device did not end at the point of sale.