PS5 Pro Drops At $699 And Gamers Are Acting Like Someone Shot Their Dog
Look, I get it. Inflation is real. Eggs cost like a mortgage payment now. But the collective meltdown over Sony dropping the PS5 Pro at a cool $699 (no disc drive, no stand, and apparently no dignity) has me wondering if the gaming community has finally lost its last remaining marble.
The internet, predictably, is on fire. Reddit threads are popping off with the energy of a Karen at an HOA meeting. Twitter is doing what Twitter does best: being insufferable. And every single gaming YouTuber is filming a 20-minute video titled "SONY HAS LOST THEIR MINDS" while sitting in a room full of gaming collectibles that cost more than my first car.
Let’s break this down, because the discourse is giving me secondhand embarrassment.
First off, yes, seven hundred dollars is a lot of money. But so is the $1,500 PC you built to play Minecraft with shaders. So is the $800 iPhone you upgrade every year so you can scroll TikTok slightly faster. So is the $12 avocado toast you bought yesterday while complaining about corporate greed. We’ve all got our priorities, and apparently, yours is being mad at a luxury entertainment device.
The real question everyone should be asking isn’t "Is it worth it?" It’s "Why are you acting like Sony kicked your puppy and stole your girlfriend?"
The PS5 Pro is not for you. It’s for the guy who still has his original PS4 hooked up to a 2017 4K TV and thinks "ray tracing" is something you do to a pencil sketch. It’s for the dude who posts "60fps or bust" in every subreddit but plays Call of Duty on a 60Hz monitor from 2013. It’s for the person who genuinely believes that 8K is a thing that matters outside of a Best Buy display model.
Sony did the math. They know the people who camped out for the original PS5, who scalped them for double MSRP, who cried when they couldn’t find one—those people will absolutely drop seven bills on a marginally better version. Why? Because FOMO is a hell of a drug, and the gaming community has the impulse control of a toddler in a candy store.
The discourse is hilarious, though. The same people who said "PC gaming is too expensive" are now acting like $699 is a war crime. The same people who dropped $70 on a 10-hour game are clutching their pearls over a console that will last them five years. The same people who pre-ordered the $1,000 iPhone 15 Pro Max are in the comments like "I’ll wait for the PS6."
But the real comedy gold is the "I’ll just build a PC" crowd. Oh, you’re going to build a PC for $700? With what, a GTX 1060 and a dream? Go ahead, try to get a 4K 60fps experience with ray tracing on a $700 PC. I’ll wait. You’ll end up with a used GPU that was mined to death and a CPU that struggles to run Discord. But sure, go off, king.
And this is coming from a PC gamer. I built my rig during the pandemic when GPU prices were actually satanic. I’ve spent more on RGB fans than some of you have on your entire setup. But I’m not stupid enough to pretend that the PS5 Pro is some kind of predatory scam. It’s a premium product for a niche audience. It’s the gaming equivalent of a Lexus vs. a Toyota. They both get you where you’re going, but one has heated seats and a better stereo.
The irony is that the people most angry about the price are probably the same ones who will buy it anyway. They’ll complain about it for six months, then impulse-buy it on Black Friday because it’s "on sale" for $649 and they "saved" $50. Meanwhile, they’ll be playing the same games they’ve been playing for years: Fortnite, GTA V (again), and whatever remastered trash Sony drops to justify the hardware.
Let’s also talk about the "no disc drive" thing. Oh no, you have to buy a separate disc drive if you want physical media. You mean like how every PC gamer has been doing for the last decade? Like how the original Xbox One tried to do and everyone rightfully roasted? Yeah, that’s the one. But here’s the thing: digital games go on sale constantly. Physical games take up space and get scratched. I know, I know, "but I like owning my games." You don’t own them. You have a license. Wake up, sheeple.
The real issue here isn’t the price. It’s that the gaming community has become a bunch of entitled crybabies who think every product should be tailored specifically to their budget and preferences. Newsflash: not everything is for you. The PS5 Pro is for the guy with a 77-inch OLED and a wife who doesn’t understand why he needs another console. It’s for the streamer who needs to justify their "content creator" tax write-off. It’s for the guy who still has a PS3 because he can’t let go of the past.
If you don’t want it, don’t buy it. It’s that simple. But you won’t do that. You’ll complain, you’ll argue, you’ll post memes about "Sony greed," and then you’ll buy it anyway because you can’t stand the thought of someone else having a slightly better frame rate than you.
In the end, Sony knows their audience. They know you’ll pay. They know you’ll complain about the price while refreshing the pre-order page. They know you’ll post a picture of your new console with a caption like "I know it’s expensive but I deserve it."
And you know what? You probably do deserve it. You work a 9-to-5
Final Thoughts
Having spent years covering hardware revisions that often feel like incremental cash grabs, the PS5 Pro finally breaks that mold by delivering a tangible leap in fidelity and performance that justifies its premium price point—at least for those with the display to appreciate it. That said, Sony’s decision to omit a disc drive and rely on an expensive vertical stand feels less like a bold future-proofing move and more like a cynical extraction of value from its most loyal customers. In the end, the PS5 Pro is a magnificent but maddening piece of engineering: a definitive console for enthusiasts, yet one that leaves a sour taste about what we’re willing to pay for progress.