PS5 Pro Announced at $700 – Sony Finally Admits the Console War is Just a Rich People Hobby Now
Look, I get it. You’ve been saving your Starbucks tips. You skipped avocado toast for six months. You’re ready to drop a bag on the “ultimate” gaming experience. Well, bend over and grab your ankles, because Sony just announced the PS5 Pro at a cool $699.99. No disc drive. No vertical stand. Just vibes, ray tracing, and a price tag that screams “I make poor financial decisions.”
For the three people who haven’t seen the news yet: Sony dropped the specs for the mid-cycle refresh of the PS5, and it’s exactly what you’d expect from a company that realized they could sell you the same console twice. The PS5 Pro is faster, shinier, and comes with a GPU that’s 45% more powerful than the base model. It’s got ray tracing that actually works this time, and it can push 4K at 60fps without breaking a sweat. Sounds great, right? Wrong. Because for that price, you could buy a base PS5, a Steam Deck, and still have enough left over for a therapy session to deal with the fact that you just spent $700 on a glorified PC that can’t even play Fortnite at 8K.
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: the price. $700 for a console in 2024 is a joke. That’s not a console; that’s a down payment on a used Honda Civic. And what do you get for that premium? No disc drive. No stand. You’re paying $700 for a box that can play games you already own, slightly better. It’s like buying a new iPhone every year, but instead of a better camera, you get slightly less lag in Cyberpunk 2077. Congrats, you’re now the proud owner of the world’s most expensive paperweight if the internet goes down.
And don’t even get me started on the “Pro” branding. What exactly is “pro” about this? Are you a pro at spending money? A pro at ignoring your credit score? Because that’s what this is. The PS5 Pro isn’t for gamers; it’s for people who have more money than sense. It’s for the guy who buys the $200 HDMI cable because “it improves the signal.” It’s for the dude who upgrades his GPU every two years just to play Minecraft with shaders. Sony isn’t targeting the average gamer; they’re targeting the 1% of the 1% who still think “console wars” are a thing.
But hey, let’s look at the specs, because that’s what the tech bros are gonna glaze over. The PS5 Pro has a beefed-up GPU with more compute units, faster memory, and something called “PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution” – which is just a fancy way of saying “upscaling that’s not quite DLSS but we’ll pretend it is.” It also has 2TB of storage, because God forbid you have to delete a game to make room for another one. And it supports Wi-Fi 7, because nothing says “next-gen” like downloading a 200GB update for Call of Duty in 20 seconds instead of 30.
But here’s the kicker: all this power is useless if the games don’t take advantage of it. And what games are we getting? The same ones you’ve been playing for the last four years. Spider-Man 2? Already out. God of War Ragnarök? Already out. The last of Us Part 3? Not even announced. So you’re paying $700 to play the same games at a slightly higher resolution. It’s like buying a Ferrari to drive to the grocery store. Sure, it’s faster, but you’re still buying the same milk.
And let’s not forget the elephant in the room: the disc drive. Sony is selling the PS5 Pro without a disc drive, because of course they are. They want you to buy the $80 add-on, because why not? It’s not like they’re already charging you an arm and a leg for the console. And if you want to stand it upright? That’s another $30 for the stand. So really, the PS5 Pro is $810 if you want a complete experience. For that price, you could buy a PC that actually plays games at 4K, runs Windows, and doesn’t force you to pay for online multiplayer.
But wait, there’s more! The PS5 Pro also comes with a “Game Boost” feature that supposedly improves performance on older PS4 and PS5 games. Translation: they’re finally admitting the base PS5 was underpowered. Remember when they said the PS5 was “future-proof”? Yeah, that was a lie. The PS5 Pro is basically Sony saying, “We know we sold you a console that can’t run modern games at 60fps, so here’s a new one that can. Give us $700.”
And the worst part? People are gonna buy it. They’re gonna line up, refresh Best Buy at 3 AM, and fight over the pre-orders like it’s Black Friday for the PS5 launch all over again. Scalpers are already rubbing their hands together, ready to list these things on eBay for $1,200. And you know what? They’ll sell. Because there’s always a sucker who needs the latest and greatest, even if it’s just a slightly better version of the same thing they already have.
So, is the PS5 Pro worth it? Let me put it this way: if you have a base PS5 and you’re happy with it, congratulations. You’re a normal person. Keep your money. Wait for the PS6. If you’re the kind of person who needs to play Horizon Forbidden West at 4K 60fps with ray tracing, and you’re willing to drop $700 to do it, then I don’t know what
Final Thoughts
After years of incremental upgrades, the PS5 Pro feels less like a generational leap and more like Sony’s admission that the mid-cycle refresh has become a necessary—if expensive—bandage for a generation struggling to keep up with 4K ray tracing. While the hardware is undeniably more capable, the real question isn’t whether it can run *Grand Theft Auto VI* at a stable 60fps, but whether a $700 console can justify itself when the average player is still waiting for a truly exclusive title that couldn’t have been done on the base model. In the end, the PS5 Pro is a tool for enthusiasts who crave technical perfection, but for most of us, it’s a reminder that the console industry’s obsession with power is outpacing its ability to deliver compelling games.