On Tuesday 10th September, Sony formally unveiled its latest iteration of the PlayStation 5; the PS5 Pro. We’re just coming up to 4 years since the original launch of the PS5, and, as with the last generation, Sony feels it’s time to inject a bit more power into this generation. As with the Concord/Live Service piece earlier this week, this is a bit of a free-flowing piece.

The mid-generation “pro” release has always felt “off”, for me. Gaming has never been a “cheap” hobby, but you could always justify (to yourself, more than anyone) it you broke everything down as pound per hour. I spent more time in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth this year than any other game. £60 for 100 hours of content? That’s good value, for me. If I pick a console up at the start of the generation, and the generation lasts 6-7 years, I’m looking at having paid about £70 a year to enjoy that gen. Yes, I am lifting amortization from the Premier League and plonking it into gaming to justify my hobby. And what?

This is where the mid-generation release feels icky. Because, if we’re assuming there are another 4 years of the ninth generation left, Sony are asking you to spend £700(!) on a console that’ll be winding down by 2028. An amortised experience of £175 a year. That doesn’t seem very reasonable at all.

I get it, I’m not the intended audience. This is for the dedicated PlayStation player. This is for the hardcore. The devotee. That’s not to say I never plan my PS5, I do. A lot, actually. But this is for the level above me. But this feels like a bit of a misstep.

PayStation, more like! Eh!

The biggest issue is the price, let’s be honest. £699.99 for a video game console? In this economy? Not since the price reveal of the PS3 have we seen such a level of hubris of Sony. I remember the lead-up to the PS5 price release and getting concerned it’d breach the £500 mark. This makes that look reasonable in comparison. And that was not reasonable.

The PS4 had a Pro edition during the last generation. That console was released 3 years after the PS4, and retailed at £350, which was the same price the PS4 launched at. In the time since the PS5 was released, the cost of the base console has only increased, with the Japanese market seeing an ~$80 increase on the console RRP over the past fortnight. The price of these things is not coming down.

From my perspective, I do not see how this is something you can sell to a few million people at most. The layman who only wants a machine for Call of Duty and GTA VI next year isn’t going to have any interest in spending more than they have to. How are you going to convince them that the experience they’d get on the PS5 Pro is double that of what they’d get on the PS5?

Vague promises

Mark Cerny cited developer feedback as one of the key drivers for developing the PS5 Pro. Game devs want a bit more power to play with, allegedly, so they can achieve the experiences they’re setting out to create. That’s all well and good, but developers haven’t been creating those experiences at any point since the release of the PS5. From day one it’s been a choice between graphics and fidelity, or somewhere in the middle. There’s absolutely no guarantee that 60fps in 4k resolution is going to be achieved on their £700 console.

More than anything, it smacks of contempt. Despite a lack of available stock for the first 2 (or more) years of the generation, despite a lack of clear generation-defining titles, Sony feels they’ve done what they can with what they released 4 years ago. When the best examples of what the console can do are found on a pack-in title and its sequel, you know something has gone wrong. Even worse when that sequel released 4 days before the PS5 Pro announcement, and is about rebuilding a giant base PS5. Way to date your own title.

I think the PS5 Pro is indicative of where this generation is at. Sony, with no real challengers, are free to dictate their own direction and pricing without any real concern as to how it might impact them in the long term. At least with the PS4 Pro it had something of a competition with the Xbox One X. The closest thing Microsoft has is a special edition 2tb Xbox Series X. The PS5 Pro is its own competition at this point.

Survival probably guaranteed

The PS4 Pro ended up accounting for about a quarter of all PS4 console sales, so there is an obvious market for the high-end console. While I don’t think we’re likely to see a 1:4 ratio this time around, it wouldn’t be a shock if the PS5 Pro accounted for around 10% of the PS5’s total sales.

I expect there to be a limited amount of them made, with that in mind. I doubt Sony are interested in sending this thing out just to warm shelves for the next 3 or so years. A more limited release would create artificial scarcity, and give the perpetual impression of it being sold out. Regardless of the numbers involved.

And who knows. If they slap a “PS5 Pro enhanced” sticker on GTA VI, that might well be enough to get the every man interested in buying one. For now, however, I’m not convinced this will drive the generation forward.