Sony's $700 PS5 Pro is Insulting

Today, the curtain was finally pulled back on one of gaming’s worst kept secrets in recent memory: the existence of the PlayStation 5 Pro. In a technical presentation hosted by Sony’s Lead System Architect, Mark Cerny, the premium console was showcased for the first time detailing improvements over the original PS5. Cerny highlighted “the big three” features–an upgraded GPU, AI-driven upscaling and enhanced ray tracing capabilities–while comparing familiar first and third-party games running on the PS5 vs. the PS5 Pro. The real kicker came at the end though, when it was revealed that the machine will cost $699 USD.

That’s $700 WITHOUT a disc drive. To put that in perspective, the original PS5 launched just four years ago in 2020 WITH a disc drive at $500, with the option for an all-digital edition at just $450!

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that Sony would release a Pro console in the middle of the generation. The precedent was set in 2016 when they released the PlayStation 4 Pro, so a PS5 Pro seemed inevitable from day one. Rumors had been swirling for months and countless reports came in from developers who already had dev kits, so it was only a matter of time before Sony made an official announcement. 

However, the PS4 Pro launched at $400, the same price of the PS4 when it released three years prior. If history is anything to go by, console prices tend to decrease throughout their life cycles, which softens the blow when a refresh costs the same as the original. The PS4 received its first price cut in 2015, bringing it down to $350, and then again in 2016 with the slim model priced at $300. It truly speaks to the massive success of the PS5 that the price hasn’t gone down at all in the four years it’s been on the market, but that consequently makes a $200 increase for the Pro model a particularly hard pill to swallow.

On its surface, $700 really isn’t that big a deal. It’s a luxury product made for the hardest of hardcore enthusiasts, and improvements made to graphical fidelity and performance is always a good thing. But consider this: dating all the way back to the PS2, PlayStation consoles have doubled as DVD/Blu-Ray players. Hell, the reason the PS2 is the best-selling console of all time is thanks in part to its multifaceted functionality! I’m aware digital sales far outweigh physical year-over-year–that train has left the station–but I know I’m not the only one who still buys physical games and has a fairly sizable Blu-ray/4K collection. So the fact that a new $700 PlayStation console doesn’t come with a disc drive is frankly insulting. 

And yes, I know you can buy a disc drive attachment separately, but to charge an additional $80 on top of the already steep price tag for a feature that used to come standard is just another slap in the face to longtime PlayStation consumers like myself. Clearly, Sony are testing the waters for an all-digital future, and I wouldn’t be shocked if the PlayStation 6 ditches the option altogether.

Anecdotally speaking, initial reactions to the $700 price tag haven’t exactly been favorable, with the majority of my X feed up in arms about the audacity of charging so much for what will ostensibly be an unnecessary upgrade over the original. Sony received similar ridicule at their infamous E3 2006 presentation where they revealed that the PlayStation 3 would retail at $599. Ken Kuturagi, the Sony Computer Entertainment CEO at the time, justified the absurd asking price by suggesting consumers should simply “work harder” to be able to afford one. This comment was rightly mocked endlessly, but it indicated a worrying arrogance that Sony seemed to pretty quickly snap out of when the price dropped to $400 two years later.

In such a tumultuous time for not only the video games industry, but the world economy, it’s concerning to see Sony fall back into that sense of security where they’re on top of the world and can do no wrong. In a recent report by Tom Henderson at Insider Gaming, another boneheaded comment was made by ex-Sony president Chris Deering regarding those affected by industry-wide layoffs, saying they should just “figure out how to get through it, drive an Uber or whatever, go off to find a cheap place to live and go to the beach for a year.” It’s really just another executive in a long line who are hopelessly out of touch with reality, but it further speaks to the worrying return of that hubris we saw in the PS3 era, where the greedy executives at the top continuously poke the consumer to see what they can get away with. And I haven’t even mentioned the recent price hike (albeit small) on DualSense controllers!

The most frustrating thing about all this is that I DO want this console. I’m about as hardcore as they come, and the boosts to performance and graphical fidelity are very appealing to me. But man, between that lack of a disc drive and Nintendo’s Switch successor looming over the horizon... Unless the enhancements offered by the Pro prove substantial enough to warrant a purchase, I'd much rather save my money for the time being.