The PS5 Pro is… how much?!

After months of speculation, Sony has finally announced the PlayStation 5 Pro, and boy are gamers suffering from sticker shock.

Sony threw a lot of technobabble at today’s unveiling, promising 67% more compute units than the base PS5, and 28% faster memory. They claim the console features 45% faster rendering than the base system. No actual specs regarding clock speeds or compute performance have been released. In addition, the PS5 Pro also features advanced ray tracing and “AI-Driven Upscaling”, presumably using AMD’s FSR 3.X.

All those improvements in performance however come at a big cost. That is an absolutely eye watering price of $699 USD, or $949 CAD. While certainly pricy in North American markets, it’s considerably more expensive across the pond. Gamers in Europe and the UK can expect to pay €799.99 or £699.99 respectively ($882 and $916 USD), while in Sony’s home country, you can expect to fork over ¥119,980 (843 USD).

So what does this price get you? Well, not all that much. While it does have 2TB of storage, double the base unit, you don’t get a disc drive. You have to buy that separately for $80 USD. And if you want to mount the console vertically, you can expect to pay another $30 for the stand.

Needless to say gamers aren’t happy. The reaction on social media has ranged from bewilderment to anger. It’s a huge price to pay for what amounts to a barely noticeable boost in performance and fidelity. Sony’s own demo steam didn’t exactly wow anyone either. Most comments I’ve seen are questioning the point of this Pro system. Especially when the base console performs well and still barely has any worthwhile exclusives. The high price also puts it well within range of gaming PCs, which offer more features, a significantly large game library, and are upgradable.

This ties off what has not been a good few weeks for Sony. The company recently suffered what may possibly be the biggest failure in gaming history with their ill-fated live-service Concord. The PS5 Pro will likely sell reasonably well. Though it’s painted Sony as a company that’s putting greed first, and gaming second.

Pre-orders for the PS5 Pro go live direct from Sony on September 26th, with the console shipping on November 7th.