Has the PlayStation 5 Pro made the future of gaming inaccessible?

Retailing for an eye-watering £700 at launch, the PlayStation 5 Pro has fans of console gaming concerned that next gen hardware will completely price us out. Has the market just been ruined?

How do you appease lifelong PlayStation fans becoming disillusioned by a lack of exciting new IPs and exclusives? By releasing a mid-gen console for £700, apparently.

The PlayStation 5 Pro is slated for release in early November. As its name suggests, it will deliver an upgraded performance on the regular PlayStation 5 while Sony devs continue to plot for the next generation of console behind the scenes – probably in Q4 of 2027.

In a pre-recorded presentation, company lead Mark Cerny laid out what new features fans can expect from the Pro. The ‘Big Three’ tenets he boasted included a larger GPU, advanced raytracing, and AI-driven upscaling – the latter technically being the only new feature beyond expanding the speed and processing power of the PlayStation 5.

Nonetheless, with a mid-gen console that is a perfectly acceptable buffet. In the same way the Xbox One X provided a notably smoother experience than the standard Xbox One, the appeal of running AAA games with better fidelity, higher standard FPS rates, and better graphics is appealing.

We had been promised a delivery on native 4K graphics and 60 FPS as a standard with the PlayStation 5 originally, and for those sick of compromising on visuals for performance mode, that prospect is now a tangible one (in theory) with the Pro.

What absolutely trumps the benefits of upgrading, however, is the astronomical prices the hardware retails at across the global marketplace. We’re talking $700 in the US, £700 in the UK, €800 in Europe, and $1,200 (AU) in Australia. On average, that’s around a $300 hike across the board on the PlayStation 5.

An outlay that hefty had better be reflected in gameplay, right?

On the contrary, given the subtle differences presented in side-by-side comparison videos – which has thrown up endless meme material on Twitter (X) and Reddit – there is little justification in making the leap, unless you’ve more money than sense.

The price tag, unsurprisingly, has become the crucial sticking point for huge parts of the gaming community. To add insult to injury, the PlayStation Pro is also due to launch without basic features like the UHD Blue-ray disc player or the vertical stand to keep the console upright. This is to be sold separately, despite the fact it isn’t designed to be laid horizontally.

Due to these glaring caveats, the YouTube reveal video mentioned earlier has 241,000 dislikes to 59,000 likes at the time of writing.

It appears a gross miscalculation has been made. With no direct competitors to Sony’s mid-gen console, it has set its stool out at an extortionate price for the PlayStation 5 Pro feeling that fans will pay. Considering its waning PR throughout 2024, however, perhaps it would have been best advised not to stoke the flames further.

The Sony PlayStation 5 Pro announcement really brought this evergreen video back to my mind. pic.twitter.com/PvdrZsuOt6

— Sludgelord (@BobToasters) September 10, 2024

This month, Sony’s highly touted multiplayer shooter Concord launched and went offline within a matter of weeks, emphasising the studio’s continued misgivings and failure to read the room with its audience.

It’s not just PlayStation owners who are concerned or disgruntled, either. The rush to negatively engage with the PlayStation 5 Pro promo material is largely driven by a mass desire to ensure that Sony doesn’t drive the overall price of console gaming up to an untenable level.

With the standard editions of new games launching at £70, the continued hike in controller prices, and the gradual raising of subscription fees, asking for £700 for a mid-gen console has seemingly provided a tipping point for consumers.

By the time we get to 2027, when next gen consoles are likely to roll out, we genuinely may well be at the stage where new consoles cost close to four-figure sums.

In any case, it goes without saying that the industry’s supposed focus on growing ‘accessibility’ would be left in tatters. People would no doubt harken back to this as a turning point, too.

Maybe the PC master race was right all along. Should we succumb and join them?