The PS5 Pro’s $700 price inspires shock and ridicule
At their “Technical Presentation” event on Tuesday, Sony unveiled the PlayStation 5 Pro, an upgraded version of its current flagship console.
According to lead PS5 architect Mark Cerny, the PS5 Pro’s major updates include a more powerful GPU; a bulked-up 2TB solid state drive; and a feature called PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), which uses AI upscaling to boost framerates on the fly. The new console also includes a feature called “Game Boost,” which Sony claims will “stabilize or improve the performance” for over 8,500 past PS4 and PS5 games.
Among gamers and critics, however, the PS5 Pro’s new features aren’t nearly as interesting as its price: $700 USD. That’s a significant leap from the current top-end PS5 model, which retails at $500 and is already seen by many as remarkably expensive.
Reactions to the new price have been harsh, with users on X (formerly Twitter) expressing near-universal scorn towards the console:
In a post on X from Monday, Washington Post reporter Gene Park actually predicted the $700 price tag — but only because he saw it as the “worst case scenario” and wanted to be pleasantly surprised.
Many users also noted that for this price tag, the PS5 Pro still comes without a physical disk drive (that’s sold separately for $80) or a vertical stand (another $30 add-on). These are both major features that many expect to come standard, especially for the high price.
And things get even pricier for players overseas, such as in the UK, where the console’s £700 GBP price actually equates to about $915 USD. In Japan, the console will retail for ¥120,000 JPY, which equates to about $840 USD. Genki_JPN, a content creator based in Tokyo, has argued that Japanese gamers are “being extorted” by this price, and that the console will be “prohibitively expensive for most normal people.”
Some veteran gamers are comparing this situation to the PlayStation 3’s rocky launch in 2006, when its $600 price tag was ruthlessly mocked for being too expensive. Of course, accounting for inflation, the PS3 would cost about $930 today — still far above the PS5 Pro’s $700. And a controversial pricing strategy isn’t the only thing that the PS5 shares with its seventh-gen ancestor.
Viewers were quick to point out that many of the games Sony used to demonstrate the PS5 Pro’s upgraded hardware — including The Last of Us Part II, Hogwarts Legacy, and Horizon Forbidden West — are also available on the PS4 and other systems. Since release, the PS5’s relatively small library of exclusive games has been a running joke online, to the point that “PS5 has no games” — a callback to the classic “PS3 has no games” — has become a popular meme. Despite also showcasing updated versions of exclusive games like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, this presentation didn’t do much to stem that criticism.
With all this said, it is possible that there’s a method to Sony’s madness. In a post on X, entrepreneur Matthew Ball argues that Pro consoles are specifically made for “price insensitive super users” who won’t balk at the $700 cost, and are rarely meant to bring in new users. He also notes that even the standard PS5 is sold at a near-loss, and lowering the price of the PS5 Pro wouldn’t make any economic sense. Matt Piscatella, an industry analyst from the firm Circana, backs this argument up by pointing out that the PS4 Pro, despite its popularity, only made up 13% of all US PS4 sales.
In his column for the Washington Post, Gene Park also makes the case that although the PS5 Pro won’t entice current PS5 owners, a purchase might make sense for non-owners who are interested in PlayStation Studios games, and PC gamers who can’t afford to upgrade their hardware.
The pricing calculus is also sure to change next year when Nintendo unveils its latest console, the successor to the unbelievably popular Switch. Although the “Switch 2” is almost certainly going to be far less powerful than the PS5 Pro, it’ll also be far less expensive; just compare the current PS5’s $500 price to the standard Switch’s $300. That lower price, combined with a unique library of first-party exclusives, allowed the Nintendo Switch to become the best-selling console of this generation, and there’s a decent chance that the “Switch 2” will follow in those footsteps.
Sony did not respond when reached for comment.
