The PlayStation 5 Pro was officially revealed during a presentation hosted by Mark Cerny this morning. While it features a bevy of improvements, including support for AI upscaling and playing in quality mode with much higher frame-rates, fans were quick to notice its price point — a cool $700.
Following Cerny's presentation, most of the comments focused on the PS5 Pro's premium pricing. Many noticed immediately that it not only lacks a disc drive, but that even the vertical stand is sold separately. With the vertical stand and the disc drive, the PS5 Pro is more than $800.
"$700 for no disk drive is crazy. I’m not paying almost $800 to play a console with a disk drive. $700 for physical may have been acceptable, but digital only for that price is absurd," read one of the top comments on Reddit.
PS5 Pro being $699 is one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time. It reminds me of this beautiful snapshot in time. pic.twitter.com/dgZQ9EkgDM
— teraflare (@xloadingscreen) September 10, 2024
Fans also weighed in on X/Twitter, with some recalling when Sony shocked the world by pricing the PlayStation 3 at $600 back in the mid-2000s. In a poll on the IGN X/Twitter asking fans if they planned to purchase a PS5 Pro, more than 80 percent of fans answered in the negative.
PS5 Pro: Sony pulls its ‘Pro’ strategy lever to engage PlayStation enthusiasts
— Piers Harding-Rolls (@PiersHR) September 10, 2024
PS5 Pro will launch globally on Nov 7th at a price point of $699 in the US, €799 across Europe, £699.99 in the UK and ¥119,980 in Japan. This is a 40-50% premium on the slim PS5 #PS5Pro ? pic.twitter.com/yKPUScJIwU
Americans weren't the only ones to be stunned by the price point. Europeans pointed that €800 is roughly equivalent to $880. Over in Japan, the term "ps5 12万円" (a reference to it costing roughly 125,000 yen) has trended as fans shared their shock over the price.
"I bought my kid a PS4 Pro as a birthday present and I thought it was a lavish gift, but there’s no way I could get him a PS5 Pro," one Japanese fan wrote.
今から7年前、息子の8歳の誕生日にPS4proをプレゼントしたの思い出した！！（笑）この時ですら小学生には贅沢だなプレゼントだなぁー！って思ったのに、PS5proは12万円もするから子供のプレゼントとしてはもう手の届かないゲーム機になったよね?#PS5pro #PS5 #PS4pro pic.twitter.com/2bwkMgK5ut
— 主婦るぴチャンネル (@rupiroom) September 10, 2024
Another referenced the Panasonic 3DO, which in its day was considered quite pricey but now seems "cute" by comparison.
当時の次世代機 3DO REAL の54,800円が可愛く見える https://t.co/Lp7mqGSk4d pic.twitter.com/E2Mdnj3Wi5
— けんたろ〜Ⓐ (@424452l) September 10, 2024
Analyzing the price following the announcement, analyst Piers Harding-Rolls posted a chart comparing the PS4 and PS5 generations in which he called the slim PS5 a "40-50 percent premium on the slim PS5." You can see the chart above.
Over on Bluesky, analyst Mat Piscatella wondered what this means for the PS6. "Starting to have more doubt around PS6 launching with a model including a physical media drive. But that's a topic for later I reckon."
In the meantime, the PS5 Pro's price led at least a few fans to take stock of the PS5's generation so far, with one pointing out how common it still is for games to release on PS4 and PS4 Pro.
"It’s pretty sad for the state of this generation when like 90% of the games they showed are playable on last gen as well," one fan wrote.
That PS5 Pro Price ?
— Larry Hryb, Gamer Emeritus ?⌨️?️? (@majornelson) September 10, 2024
The PS5 Pro is certainly a thing, with a really high price tag.
— Clement (@ClementJ64) September 10, 2024
Again, I the think the regular PS5 is plenty powerful. I'm no graphics whore, I get my 60FPS in most games and they all look great. Load times are never a problem anymore. I'm perfectly content. pic.twitter.com/DkmOl5qbJd
PlayStation 5 Pro pricing in line with price increases elsewhere
Sony has been quietly raising prices on the PS5 in many markets for a while now, with the Dualsense price also jumping from $69.99 to $74.99. In an interview with IGN that we ran last week, analyst Daniel Ahmad offered some insight into why consoles have failed to drop in price over the course of the generation.
"One, production and shipping costs are not declining in-line with previous generations, especially for components such as SSDs. This was especially notable during the early COVID-19 period which severely impacted supply chains and led to shortages for chips, paired with an increase in demand for at-home entertainment, which led to increasing costs," he explained. "Two, console platform holders are struggling to maintain gross profit margins across the board. This has led to price maintenance (or even price increases in some markets) to ensure hardware remains profitable. Three, the Xbox Series S and PS5 Digital Edition were already sold at a significant loss on day 1. The increased focus on profitability for disc models is to try and offset losses, maintain margins, and weather external factors that may impact spending on games such as cost of living increases."
Trying real hard to see the difference between PS5 and PS5 Pro graphics pic.twitter.com/5dXhFfVj2y
— Celina?セリーナ (@tkn0801) September 10, 2024
Sony will hope that the PS5 Pro's technical improvements will be enough to push relucant fans over the line. Following the presentation, Cerny touted its various performance increases, with Sony claiming that it will push 67 percent more Compute Units than the current PS5 and 28 percent faster memory. Overall, they claim, it's a 45 percent increase in rendering speed for gameplay. With the gap in visuals shrinking in recent years, though, at least some fans said they struggled to see the difference in the graphics.
"It's mad that this late in the cycle they are dropping this with a ~£250 increase in the price of the regular PS5. I can understand why they would go for it, but it is a risky move," a fan wrote on Resetera. "The real baffling decision is to drop the disc drive. I haven't seen the stats but i would assume the majority of PS5 owners opted for the disc version, so removing that and forcing them to buy an additional peripheral to play the games they own, feels astonishing. But maybe there are stats that show most picked up the digital console edition and it's a logical move to make the disc optional."
We'll know how fans feel about the PS5 Pro when it releases on November 7. Pre-orders go live on September 26. There's plenty more to dig into now that the PS5 Pro is officially live, so make sure to keep an eye on IGN for our full analysis.
Kat Bailey is IGN's News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
