PS5 Pro Drops at $700, Gamers Realize They Could Have Bought a PC and Therapy Instead
Look, I get it. We’re all just NPCs in the simulation, mindlessly chasing the next dopamine hit from a plastic box that costs more than my rent for a studio apartment in Ohio. Sony just announced the PS5 Pro, and for the low, low price of $700—or as I like to call it, “the price of a decent used car that will also break down immediately”—you too can experience slightly better ray tracing and 60 FPS in games you’ve already beaten three times.
But hey, at least it’s not a graphics card in 2021, am I right? Oh wait, it basically is, except it can’t browse Reddit without crashing.
Let’s break this down like a PS5 Slim that overheated during a Baldur’s Gate 3 session. The new console, codenamed “Trinity” (because nothing says “gaming innovation” like a biblical reference to a corporate money grab), promises a 45% faster GPU, advanced ray tracing, and a custom machine learning upscaling tech that sounds suspiciously like Nvidia’s DLSS but with less “actually working.” The price tag? $699.99. That’s not a typo. That’s Sony looking at the current economy where people are choosing between groceries and gas and saying, “But what if we also offered a $200 disc drive add-on?”
The internet, predictably, is having a meltdown that would make a nuclear reactor blush. Reddit’s r/gaming is currently a war zone between the “I’m buying it day one” crowd (fiscally irresponsible kings) and the “this is a scam, just build a PC” brigade (people who have never felt the warmth of a woman’s touch). The AITA energy is off the charts. Someone literally posted, “AITA for telling my friend his PS5 Pro preorder is a waste of money when he could’ve bought a Steam Deck and a life?” The top comment: “YTA, but also NTA, but also ESH. Just let people enjoy their bad decisions.”
Let’s talk about the “value proposition” because I have a headache and misery loves company. For $700, you get a console that plays the exact same games as the $400 PS5, just with a bit more polish. No new exclusives. No groundbreaking features. Just “We promise the grass will look slightly greener in Horizon Forbidden West.” Meanwhile, for that same $700, you could build a PC that not only runs Cyberpunk 2077 at 60 FPS but also lets you pirate games like a true digital Robin Hood. Or, you know, pay your rent. But who needs shelter when you can have slightly faster load times in Spider-Man 2?
The real kicker? Sony is also selling a vertical stand separately for $30. A stand. For a console that literally stands vertical on its own. It’s like buying a car and then being charged extra for the steering wheel. This is the same energy as Apple selling a $1,000 monitor stand. Except Sony’s stand is plastic and probably breaks if you sneeze on it.
And let’s not ignore the elephant in the room: the PS5 Pro is launching at a time when the average American is one bad Amazon return away from financial ruin. Inflation is up, interest rates are higher than my hopes for a good Star Wars game, and yet Sony expects us to drop seven bills on a console that doesn’t even come with a disc drive. The base model? Digital only. Want to play your physical copies of Elden Ring? That’ll be an extra $200 for the disc drive attachment, which is also sold separately and probably out of stock until 2026.
But here’s the thing—and I say this as someone who has spent way too much time on r/patientgamers—the PS5 Pro is actually a brilliant move by Sony. They’re not selling a console; they’re selling a status symbol. It’s the gaming equivalent of buying a Gucci belt to hold up your Walmart jeans. You know it’s stupid, I know it’s stupid, but some people will still camp outside Best Buy for it because they need that sweet, sweet validation from strangers on the internet. “Look at me, I have a PS5 Pro!” Congratulations, you paid $700 for the privilege of being a beta tester.
The discourse is already hilarious. PC gamers are dunking on it like it’s a 2023 AMC stock. “Just build a PC, bro!” they say, ignoring that a comparable GPU alone costs more than the PS5 Pro. Meanwhile, Xbox fans are sitting in the corner like the kid who got a C+ on his report card while his friend got an A. “We have Game Pass,” they whisper, clutching their Series S like a security blanket. And Nintendo fans? They’re just happy they can still play Breath of the Wild for the fourth time.
The real losers here are the people who bought a launch PS5 in 2020. You paid $500 for a console that’s now obsolete in four years. That’s like buying a top-of-the-line iPhone and then Apple releases a new one that has a slightly better camera and charges you $200 more. Oh wait, that’s exactly what happens every year. But at least your iPhone can take photos that don’t look like they were taken in a Minecraft cave.
Look, I’ll probably end up buying the PS5 Pro. Not because I need it, but because I’m a weak, consumerist zombie who has been conditioned to believe that more power equals more happiness. I’ll sell my current PS5 for $300 on Facebook Marketplace to some poor soul who doesn’t know any better, and then I’ll play the same games I already own at a slightly higher resolution while feeling a vague sense of emptiness. It’s the American way.
Final Thoughts
After years of incremental mid-gen refreshes, the PS5 Pro feels less like a genuine leap forward and more like Sony finally admitting that its original hardware was undercooked for the caliber of games it demands. The raw power boost is undeniable, but I can't shake the feeling that this "Pro" is a solution looking for a problem—a premium price tag for smoother framerates that most players only consciously notice when they’re missing them. Ultimately, it’s a brilliant machine for the pixel-peeping enthusiast, but it leaves the rest of us wondering if this is the best use of engineering talent in an era when clever software optimization has been quietly winning the war.