Sony announced the long-awaited PlayStation 5 Pro this week, and with it came an onslaught of discourse about one particular point: the PS5 Pro price. Retailing for $699 this November, the PlayStation 5 Pro is the most expensive console of the modern gaming age, pricing out fans who might have considered buying it.
So, who is the PlayStation 5 Pro for? The 60 million players who have already spent up to $500 for the base PS5 won't exactly be eager to shell out another $700 after only four years. And those who haven't bought into the PlayStation ecosystem may be hard pressed to pay the premium price for what the PS5 Pro promises.
I've written before about who the PlayStation Portal was meant for, and now I'm having similar questions about this new console. Who is willing to pay this high price, and will the product's performance be worth the cost of admission?
Does the Performance Boost Justify the PS5 Pro Price?
During the PS5 Pro presentation, PlayStation 5 architect Mark Cerny said that 75% of players prefer playing their games on Performance mode, prioritizing 60 FPS over 4K visuals. The PS5 Pro is supposed to bridge that gap and add in better fidelity options with advanced ray-tracing while maintaining 60 FPS.
Games like Hogwarts Legacy and The Last of Us Part 2 look genuinely better, creating some excitement over what the PS5 Pro is capable of. Other games, like Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart and Marvel's Spider-Man 2, looked less impressive.
During the PS5 Pro showcase, Cerny was zooming in on leaves in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 to show how much sharper the pixels are. Is this something the average gamer will notice when viewing from several feet away on a large TV, often while quickly zipping through the environment?
A console that can handle 4K/60 FPS has been something the PlayStation community has wanted for a while, but it's also something many agree that the console we got four years ago should have been able to deliver on this. Plus, even with the higher PS5 Pro price, we're missing some key elements that are sure to be missed.
PS5 Pro Shortcomings: No Disc Drive & No Stand
As hefty as the $699 price tag is, the PS5 Pro comes in a digital-only configuration with no disc drive and no vertical stand. These accessories are priced at $80 and $30 respectively, bringing the total PS5 Pro price to roughly $810 before tax. Want an extra controller or even a PS VR2 peripheral? We're looking at well over a thousand dollars.
This pricing is extremely reminiscent of the PlayStation 3 launching at $599 back in 2006, but even the PS3 came with a Blu-Ray player, an expensive device that had yet to become a mainstream media player. By not including a disc drive or even a stand, Sony is rolling back some of the things we used to expect as standard features in our consoles.
The three selling points are all internal upgrades:
- A larger GPU with 45% faster rendering than the PS5
- Advanced Ray-Tracing
- AI-Driven Upscaling with PlayStation Spectral Super Sampling (PSSR)
And to be fair, there are impressive improvements, and I'm curious to see what new PS5 games will look like and how they'll run when they fully take advantage of the PS5 Pro architecture. I just don't think it justifies a $699 PS5 Pro price tag, especially considering it only feels like we just recently moved on from games being cross-gen with PS4.
A PlayStation 5 Pro Isn't a Big Enough Jump for the Price
The PS5 Pro is a great showcase of why mid-gen refreshes have diminishing returns in the modern era. While the PlayStation 4 Pro offered the jump from 1080P to 4K, the PS5 Pro improvements feel more nuanced for those seeking faster framerates and better ray-tracing.
There is, without a doubt, a population of gamers who celebrate these improvements, but those same players likely already have a PC that offers the performance they desire. For the average PlayStation fan who enjoys gaming on a user-friendly console in their living room, I think they're having too much fun with Astro Bot on their existing $500 system to consider that an upgrade is needed.
The reality is, we're likely within four years of the next generation of video game technology. So it feels like a weird time to make a $700 investment for what doesn't feel like a commensurate return. We're really just starting to see what the base PS5 is capable of, so it would make sense that many are happy with their current console.
After all, Play Has No Limits, but bank accounts sure do.
Dan is a Boston-based writer who has been with TechRaptor since the end of 2020. He has been working in the online writing, editing and SEO space for nearly… More about Dan
