PS5 Pro Announced, Costs More Than Your First Car, Still Doesn’t Come With A Disc Drive
Alright, listen up, you sad, sweaty nerds. Sony just dropped the news we’ve all been waiting for with the same level of enthusiasm you have for a root canal: the PS5 Pro is real. And by “real,” I mean it’s a $700 paperweight that’s going to make your current console look like a Game Boy Color running on two AA batteries from 1998.
I know, I know. You’ve been refreshing r/GamingLeaksAndRumours for three years, convinced that a slightly shinier box would finally let you see the individual pores on Nathan Drake’s forehead in 8K. Well, congrats, you absolute goblins. You got it. But here’s the punchline: Sony’s marketing lead basically stood on stage and said, “Hey, remember when you paid $500 for a console that still has loading screens? Cool. Now give us another $200 and we’ll let you play the same games, but like, the reflections on puddles will be slightly better.”
Let’s break this down, because I need to process this corporate clownery.
**The Price: A Masterclass in Pain**
Seven. Hundred. Dollars. No, that’s not a typo. That’s not the price with a bundle of games. That’s the price for the console itself. You know what else costs $700? A decent used car. A month of rent in a studio apartment in Ohio. Like, 140 Chipotle burritos. Instead, you get a machine that will play *Spider-Man 2* at 60fps with ray tracing that makes the windows look marginally less like Vaseline-smeared glass.
And here’s the real kick in the nuts: it doesn’t come with a disc drive. You read that right. The $700 box of future e-waste is digital-only out of the box. Want to play your physical copy of *Elden Ring*? That’ll be an extra $80 for the attachable disc drive, you broke bitch. Sony is literally selling you a car without wheels and saying, “Oh, you want to drive it? That’s a premium feature.”
It’s the gaming equivalent of buying a house and finding out the doors are sold separately. I can already see the AITA posts: “AITA for telling my friend his $900 PS5 Pro setup is a waste of money when he could have bought a Steam Deck and a plane ticket to Japan?” NTA, my dude. NTA.
**The Specs: Who Gives a Shit?**
Look, I’m not gonna pretend I understand half the jargon Sony threw at the screen. “RDNA 3.5 architecture.” “PSSR upscaling.” “45% faster ray tracing.” Cool. Cool cool cool. All I heard was “We’re selling you a Ferrari that can only go on the same dirt roads as a Honda Civic.”
The reality is, games are still going to be held back by the base PS5 for the next five years. You think developers are going to optimize for a console that costs more than a PS5 and an Xbox Series X combined? No. They’re going to ship the same unoptimized buggy mess, and the Pro will just make the textures load 0.3 seconds faster while your wallet cries.
And let’s talk about “AI upscaling” for a second. Oh great, another buzzword. So you’re telling me the PS5 Pro is using machine learning to guess what pixels should be there because the hardware can’t actually render them natively? That’s not innovation, that’s a cop-out. It’s like ordering a steak and getting a picture of a steak with a note that says “Your imagination is the real flavor.” Fuck off.
**The Games: Where Are They?**
Sony showed off a bunch of footage. *Horizon Forbidden West* looked pretty. *Gran Turismo 7* had shiny cars. *The Last of Us Part 2*… again. Wow. Groundbreaking. I’m so glad I can spend $700 to play the same games I’ve already played, but now Joel’s beard has individual hairs.
Where’s the *next-gen* exclusive? Where’s the game that makes me say, “Oh shit, my base PS5 literally cannot handle this”? Oh, right. It doesn’t exist. Because the console market is dead. We’re in the era of cross-gen slop. The PS5 Pro is a $700 solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, designed for people who have more money than sense and a desperate need to validate their purchase on Reddit.
**The Target Audience: A Case Study**
Let’s be real about who’s buying this thing. It’s not the casual dad who plays *Call of Duty* for an hour after the kids go to bed. It’s the guy who still has his original PS4 box in his closet, who has a 77-inch OLED TV that cost more than his car, and who will absolutely, 100% post a picture of his setup on r/battlestations with the caption “Finally upgraded!” and get 12 upvotes.
It’s the same energy as the people who bought the iPhone 15 Pro Max just to scroll Twitter slightly faster. You’re a consumer, not a connoisseur. And Sony knows you’ll pay. They know the FOMO is real. They know you’ll max out your credit card for a 5% performance increase in *Cyberpunk 2077*’s DLC that you already beat twice.
You want my advice? Don’t buy it. Keep your base PS5. Or better yet, sell it, buy a Steam Deck, and laugh at Sony from the comfort of your PC library. But you won’t. Because you’re a mark. And Sony loves marks.
So go ahead. Pre-order. Spend your rent money. Explain to your girlfriend why the box under your TV is now worth
Final Thoughts
The PS5 Pro is a fascinating paradox: it’s a technical marvel that finally delivers the 60fps ray-traced fidelity we’ve been promised for years, yet it feels less like a generational leap and more like a premium luxury tax for the most demanding gamers. While the raw power is undeniable, the lack of a built-in disc drive and the eye-watering price point make it a hard sell for anyone who isn’t already deeply invested in Sony’s ecosystem or desperate for a native 4K experience on their OLED. Ultimately, the Pro is a testament to diminishing returns—a spectacular, niche refinement for the hardcore, but a reminder that the industry's real innovation has shifted to exclusives and service models rather than raw horsepower alone.