Sony officially announced the PlayStation 5 Pro as their latest addition to the PlayStation family on Sept. 10.
The PS5 Pro marks the first upgrade to the hardware of the console since the original PS5 was released in 2020. PS5 Pro upgraded multiple graphical and performance capabilities, but what shocked people most was the $699.99 price tag.
With a $200 price hike compared to the original PS5, the PS5 Pro continues the upward trend of gaming console prices. Adjusting for inflation, the console’s price is only outdone by the PlayStation 3.
The PS3 was released in 2006 and became the worst-selling PlayStation home console of all time according to Sony figures. A 20-gigabyte PS3 retailed for $499, while the 60-gigabyte version was a staggering $599. Today those prices would be equivalent to $778, and $934, respectively.
PlayStation’s premium price skyrocketed expectations for the new console. In a nearly 10-minute technical presentation uploaded to their YouTube channel, PS5 Pro Lead Architect Mark Cerny described the main goal of the new console.
“We want to give players the graphics that the game creators aspire to, at the high frame rates that players typically prefer,” Cerny said.
PS5’s “Graphics Mode” has made users choose between worsening graphics for better performance, or worsening performance for better graphics. PlayStation doesn’t want users to have to make that choice anymore.
“When asked to decide on the mode, players are choosing performance about 3/4 of the time. Removing that decision, or at least narrowing that divide is one of the key targets for PlayStation 5 Pro,” Cerny said.
The console’s updated hardware focused on three key features to make this target possible. A PlayStation blog post announcing the new console highlighted the improvements. The PS5 Pro’s graphics processing unit has been upgraded to allow up to 45% faster rendering for gameplay than the current PS5. Advanced Ray Tracing plans to improve ray tracing by 2-3 times the speed of its predecessor. The final key feature, PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, utilizes AI-driven upscaling to massively improve graphics through machine learning.
Despite these new features, the reaction from the public has been generally negative. The additions to the new model have been overshadowed by the removal of key elements of the original PS5.
A main sticking point comes with the PS5 Pro’s lack of a disk drive, buyers can instead purchase it separately for $79.99. An even more surprising exclusion from the PS5 Pro came to light in the fine print of PlayStation’s pricing advertisement.
At the bottom of the advertisement, “Vertical Stand sold separately” is stated in fine print. Gamers will now have to spend an additional $29.99 to best support their purchase.
In total, to match the offerings of the original PS5, Pro purchasers will have to shell out another $109.98.
Xbox, Playstation’s biggest competitor, has yet to announce a matching upgrade to their console line. Microsoft has instead focused on re-releasing their new generation of consoles with upgraded storage capacities at a smaller increase from their original price compared to Sony.
Nintendo has recently had rumors swirling of the successor to their commercially successful Switch console. Unconfirmed design leaks of what fans have been calling the “Switch 2” shares a very similar look to its original. Leaked specs of the new console show a powerful upgrade appears to be coming. Nintendo has yet to make any official announcements regarding this.
PlayStation is taking a step forward technologically with its new console. Cerny concluded the technical presentation saying, “Simply put, it’s the most powerful console we’ve ever built and a worthy addition to the PS5 family.”
Still, with their pricing and removal of the disk drive and vertical stand, the PS5 Pro could see sales numbers affected following its Nov. 7 launch.