If I didnt have a PS5 already (bought mine May 2023) - I would have bought this easily.

But the fact that it doesnt have a disc drive (despite being fully digital, I still have some PS4 games that are physical) made the decision making easier.

I'll stick with my PS5 and likely will get the PS6 on launch (or whenever I'm able to get it per stock and availability).


I could jump into getting a PS5 Pro maybe in the future but...highly unlikely, the AI up-scaling portion gives me doubt.


If anything I'll stick with playing games at performance mode on PS5 and play them again years later on a higher spec PC for higher resolution and framerate.

The disc drive went from no one buying it to #5 on Amazon (in my country), the scalping is real LOL.

Honestly, I'm not that worked up about the pricing of the Pro lol. Its a premium device that compliments the standard PS5.

Yeah, it's not like the slim is also $700.

Not yet.

PS has been testing waters.

Raising standard game full price (I think that one would happen anyway, tho).

Not making any price cuts the entire gen.

Slim is not cheaper.

Raising the price of the PS5 in several places in 2022, then again massively on Japan now.

Raising the Dualsense price now too, without even announcing it.

And now this absurd price for the Pro, with no SKU options for pre-installed disc drive model or even a 1TB model, and everywhere is a lot worse than that $700 price in USA. They don't even give a stand charging that much!

There is no way the PS6 will not follow suit on being "premium priced" if the consumers keep accepting it, there will be no good options, and when that happens it'll be too late to be worried.

I think you're just ignoring the economic situations if you're framing all of this as Sony testing the waters on how much it can shaft consumers. Prices of manufacturing for Consoles and GPU's are not in a good place. Xbox have raised their prices since launch, Nintendo launched the Switch over 7 years ago and haven't cut its price, despite Switch being the only console hardware sold at a profit. Even Nintendo has made the jump to $70 for some titles, soon a lot more no doubt.

Per the fiscal reports PS5 hardware is STILL sold at a loss. They are expecting to lose money on hardware this fiscal year.

If consumers won't accept higher prices and the cost of manufacturing doesn't improve in the years ahead then the PS6 will just be less powerful, not a better price to power ratio.

In the short time I've been in this site I have read some of your opinions and I do believe they are pretty good but on this one I feel it's a little more of a reaction than an analysis.

We know the first $70 game was nba 2k21 and yes Sony didn't need to follow the trend but we also know from various developers that they believe asking $70 is cheaper in comparison to how much game cost these days. Even better, the same way Sony started to use the 70 price tag, they also put the 40 price tag in their services and not only that but they also decided for their 40 services to not be predatory. Helldivers sold a lot of $60 copies, people didn't need to, you can get everything playing the game but they decided to do it because the game is awesome. Other examples: Astro is $60, The last of us 2 remaster was an upgrade for $10 (people who bought it already having it were refunded). The GOW R dlc is just pure magic and it's free. Yes every company is greedy but they are showing sings of not being over confident when it comes to game pricing.

I don't know where you are from but the PS5 was $700 in my country when it released, now it is 500 with Returnal and Ratchet, two of my favorites and I know the console had good prices since before the slim release in both USA and Europe, yes it isn't a standard price but also it happens constantly.

Rising prices is part of the economy so let's not waste too much time in that point. Japan is suffering right now, I remember this kind of popular tweet before evo asking people to buy water and food to japanese players at EVO if possible because their coin is really suffering.

About the ps5 pro, well the ps4 pro was $400 in the usa, $450 in europe and it was $600 in my country and it released like 6 months later lol.

Now, two points I want to give you is the dualsense increase and no option for a pro with disc drive. I didn't like that, it's not a deal breaker but I didn't like it.

But what I think should also be included in the conversation is the ps vr2, it got a $200 price cut lol. Like ... people aren't just blindly buying stuff, they didn't buy it and the price dropped hard. So watching people ranting (not you) about the ps5 pro is actually good news for me because I know that whenever the console hits my country people supposedly aren't going to buy it and the prices will fall in a matter of months on Amazon.

The combination of the economic situation in the world and the fact that their main rival is downsizing somewhat may be the reason why they raised the price of the Dualsense and the pricing of the PS5 Pro console.

No doubt that the PS6 will start at the base price of $700.

PS5 pro isn't going to be setting the stage for PS6. 

They have almost completely different markets.

They need their consoles to sell 80+ million. That's the only way to sell their games at a high enough cost and volume to make it worth it. 

I doubt they expect PS5 Pro to sell 5 million at this price.

Unfortunately this was bound to happen. 

There's practically been an ongoing arms race to making games bigger and more expensive across most of the industry. 

If anything it feels like this is the first gen there's been more pushback. And we haven't really seen game costs double the way they normally would. Still getting more expensive, but not like it did most gens.

This feels like an industry-wide problem as well. 

We're long past the days when PS2 would have massive shrinks and cost $100 or even $70 in the US. 

Hardware isn't shrinking the way it used to. The costs aren't particularly shrinking anymore. 

Even during the PS4 gen, the console barely got smaller and barely got cheaper.