While many gamers are excited about the PS5 Pro, which Sony officially launched last month, discussions about the console’s technical details continue unabated. While the lack of a significant increase in processor performance is noteworthy, the reasons behind Sony’s decision have been clearly explained for the first time. Here’s the behind-the-scenes story of PlayStation’s lead architect Mark Cerny’s focus on the graphics card over the processor in the PS5 Pro…

PS5 Pro strives to be resource efficient

Speaking in an interview with Digital Foundry, Mark Cerny said that during the design process of the PS5 Pro, a choice was made on how to use limited resources. Emphasizing that Sony’s goal is to maximize the current generation gaming experience, Cerny explained that areas such as graphics card (GPU), memory and storage were prioritized accordingly.

“Visual performance and smoothness are more important in games today,” Cerny said, arguing that a big leap on the processor side was unnecessary. That’s why we put our resources into improving the GPU,” Cerny said.

Mike Fitzgerald, Insomniac Games’ director of core technologies, supported this approach in the same interview, stating that most of today’s games are already not utilizing the PS5’s existing CPU to its full capacity.

While some gamers were disappointed by the PS5 Pro’s focus on the graphics card instead of the processor, this strategy makes sense in a generation where visual quality is at the forefront. Especially at a time when ray tracing technology is becoming more prevalent in the gaming world, Sony’s choice may increase the PS5 Pro’s competitiveness in the long run.