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‘$700 without a disc drive?’: Gamers balk at PS5 Pro pricing

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Rappler.com 

MANILA, Philippines – Sony on Tuesday, September 10, announced the new PS5 Pro, an upgraded version of the PS5, touting high fidelity visuals while maintaining fast frame rates, AI-enhanced upscaling, and game performance-boosting technology even for last generation PS4 games. 

But despite the new capabilities, one topic has dominated the PS5 Pro conversation online: the price. The PS5 Pro’s price starts at $699, a big increase compared to its last generation counterpart, the PS4 Pro, which launched at $399. 

The PS4 Pro’s launch price tag was the same as the PS4 at $399. The PS5, on the other hand, launched at $399 for the cheapest model, which means this generation’s “Pro” version is seeing a $300 price bump compared to its base model.  

One element that has apparently irked gamers is the fact that the PS5 Pro, for its price, doesn’t have a built-in disc drive, instead opting for the digital-only route like the original PS5’s $399 model. It doesn’t have a vertical stand included either, which came standard with the original models. 

The disc drive and vertical stand can be bought separately at $80 and $30, respectively. To compare, the $499 variant of the original PS5 came with a disc drive and vertical stand. So, if a gamer wanted that same experience on a PS5 Pro, they would have to shell out around $810. 

On social media, gamers aired their grievances.

@Okami13_ proposed a “mid-range” gaming PC build as an alternative to the PS5 Pro. He commented that while he also loves console gaming, he wanted to show that building a PC isn’t as expensive as before. While gaming PCs offer the highest level of performance, building one that provides a comparable experience to a console’s is often more expensive.

@xloadingscreen harkened back to the days of the PS3 price announcement, which at the time was also not received warmly.

For further comparison, the Game Awards’ Geoff Keighley shared the prices for PlayStation consoles through the years, adjusted for inflation:

On a thread on Reddit, a user noted he was, prior to the announcement, willing to “pay a good price for [the PS5 Pro] but not like this.”

He believed that Sony wanted people to pay the “ridiculous” prices for games on the PlayStation store rather than being able to get games “at a better price physically from a retailer.” There’s also an added benefit to buying physical games: the opportunity to resell them after finishing the game. 

Another user expressed dismay over their collection of PS4 disc-based games that they won’t be able to play on the disc drive-less PS5 Pro from the get-go. 

CNET, which was able to get hands-on time with the console, wrote that the “$700 mid-cycle upgrade console like the PS5 Pro isn’t an expense most people will be up for, especially since the original PS5 is still a perfectly good game console.”

But it added that Sony knows this reality and are likely looking at first-time PS5 buyers as the target customers, given that a “significant percentage of PS4 Pro buyers were new customers, according to Sony,” CNET wrote. 

While some gamers question whether the performance difference between the PS5 and PS5 Pro is worth the money, CNET’s experience may hold some promise for the enthusiast: “4K 60 fps gaming is so tempting if you have the display for it. In all the demos I tried, I found myself wondering if I’d just want to play everything in this mode and never look back.”

Analysts cited by Videogames Chronicle said that the price of the PS5 Pro will “soften demand with some consumers” but will remain attractive to the enthusiast crowd.

“Lifetime PS4 Pro sales reached 14.5 million units, accounting for around 12% of total PS4 sales, according to Ampere’s data. The firm is forecasting a similar dynamic for the PS5 Pro, with sell-through of around 13 million units by 2029,” the website reported. – Rappler.com