Yeah I think is very true. For the amount of money you're spending, we're entering an era where we're getting a very diminished return on visuals. I mean, really the biggest upgrade this generation imo that has truly felt like a "next-gen" experience is SSDs.

This is actually the pricing all in USD with tax

US ~760USD
JAP ~842USD
EU ~881USD
UK ~915USD

So yeah Americans shouldn't be complaining. Everywhere else is the equivalent of $840+ USD. Look at that UK price, lol. 

You might be right but at that price point I sure as heck won't be supporting this.

So let me get this straight. Controllers now break with drift every other year and cost $75. PSN is $79.99 a year for the basic version. No price cuts for consoles. No disc drive included. Games go to PC within a year or two. Massive amounts of money being wasted on crap like Concord or buying Bungie instead of focusing on good single-player games.

Anybody remember when PS4 was $300 for the slim model, PSN was cheaper, games were actually exclusive, and controllers didn't break?

Don't get me wrong. PC blows because no physical option. But both Sony's and Xbox's consoles are pathetic compared to what we had one generation ago. I think I'm done with modern consoles after this gen. Maybe I'll upgrade my PC and wait until games are 70% off to buy them. Paying $70 for a digital-only copy of a game is for morons, especially if you aren't going to play the game immediately. And my backlog is massive anyway.

Edit: Switch 2 I will probably still get. But I think you guys know what I mean. Modern as in $500 and up gaming machines that sit below your TV.

Granted, I'm not really the target audience for this as I'm quite happy with my base PS5, but $700 USD for a console, without a disc drive, at a time when many people are struggling to make ends meet, feels incredibly out of touch.

It feels like we're back in 2005-6 with all that "people will get a second job to afford a PS3" shit, except now people already have a second job just to make rent, so it's more like "people will get a third job and sell a kidney to afford a PS5 Pro".

I'm not surprised at all by the price but it costing that much without a disc drive, stand and the increased cost in places like the UK are all BS aspects. £699 for this, really? Though people will need to get used to higher prices since just wait till the PS6 costs at least as much as this and likely even more with the eventual PS6 Pro going over 1k. It coming with a 2TB SSD is nice though and while the general power increase is much smaller than the PS4 to PS4 Pro the big ray tracing improvement and addition of PSSR should make up for a lot of that so it's probably gonna be a really nice machine for those who want a premium console gaming experience for a while.

What it won't make up for though is costing a lot more than the PS4 Pro while lacking the big 4K push that had so this should sell notably less than that. The lack of a more powerful Xbox Series revision will help it some however since a notable portion of the Series X owners will have bought it at least in part due to it being the most powerful console so some of those people will sell/trade it in for this especially once GTA 6 comes out. That'll sell more PS5 Pro's than anything else. Also the presentation was pretty dry overall but the most interesting part was Cerny saying that about 75% of people are choosing performance modes over fidelity modes which is nice since it shows that not just PC gamers but also most console gamers care more about FPS than getting the best visuals though the increase in 30fps only games in the coming years will probably push some of those people to PC.

If I didnt have a PS5 , I would have bought this easily.

But the fact that it has a high price that I could throw at a gaming desktop and the lacking of a disc drive makes the decision to wait for a PS6 instead of jumping to a PS5 Pro from a PS5 easier.

From a business POV they'd be stupid to continue to subsidize consoles at cost (virtually no profit to them) or even a loss (even worse) when they have no real direct competition. 

2005 was a long time ago. 

The whole "everything has to be dirt cheap in gaming" logic really is rooted in the 1980s when the market was largely children reliant on parents buying them a console for a birthday or Christmas gift. The industry is so far beyond that now, a complete break from that model was overdue. Even Nintendo I think is more and more going to embrace premium pricing. 

The only reason Sony even adhered to that level of pricing for so long was because Microsoft is such a huge company they felt obligated to price competitively. Now that MS is showing signs of effectively going 3rd party, there's no pressure on Playstation to have to do that. 

Just wanna say again how ridiculous the price in the UK is. This literally costs twice as much as the PS4 Pro did despite the fact it's only been eight years. £349 made that a genuinely pretty sweet deal back when it launched aside from the lack of 4K blu-ray playback but the days of good power for a good price are over now unfortunately. Also the price in the US doesn't include tax but that won't make up the difference since £699 is a bit over $899 currently so there is no reason the price in pounds should be literally identical to the price in dollars. £649 would still be crap but more reasonable than this bollocks.

Except PS3 was sold at a massive loss, whereas PS5 Pro will probably be sold at a profit, probably a fairly hefty one too (I would guess).