Witness Play Unleased
On September 10th, Sony announced the PlayStation 5 Pro. Touting various features such as an upgraded CPU, advanced ray tracing, AI-Driven upscaling, and more, this Pro will cost you a hefty $699.99 USD. To no surprise, much of the internet baulked at the price tag. The question is, is the PlayStation 5 Pro truly a rip off?
So, what comes with the $700 PS5 Pro? Well, it includes a 2TB SSD, a DualSense wireless controller, and a copy of Astro’s Playroom. What it won’t come with is a disk drive. You’ll have to pay more for that.
Current gen consoles range from $200 USD for the Nintendo Switch Lite to $450 USD for the 1TB Xbox Series X. The base PlayStation 5 currently is priced at $500 USD. So, it would be reasonable to break into a sweat if you’re looking to upgrade to the Pro.
Interestingly enough, Geoff Keighley send a Tweet later that day with inflation adjusted prices for the mainline PlayStation consoles:
With that in perspective, perhaps the $700 isn’t too wild; however, I personally still fall to the camp that feels that is just too much for the general market to bear. The average player likely needs to focus paying the rent, gas, and groceries, while already struggling to afford the one game they can pay for at a time. Speaking of which, other than the recent Astrobot, Sony players are still starving for PS5 games.
Sure, there will be sales, thanks to people with a more lenient budget or those that prioritize console performance…but usually we see these gaming elitists prefer PC.
So, are the upgrades really worth it? We are told that the new GPU will allow for smoother experience due to 28% faster memory and 45% faster rending. Ray tracing? We can expect double or triple the speed to cast rays. The AI-driven upscaling will provide sharper image clarity. Lastly, it will include a Game Boost that will improve or stabilize the performance of supported PS4 or PS5 games.
Is all of that worth the extra $200? For me, absolutely not. The base PS5 is a dream machine that plays its games wonderfully, and I believe the upgrades would not barely be noticeable to the average gamer. Is it totally unreasonable? Not necessarily given the history of the PlayStation console prices; however, I just hope Sony doesn’t expect large sales numbers…
The PS5 Pro launch on November 7th, 2024. Preorders will begin on September 26, 2024.
What do you think? Please share your thoughts with us on our Boss Rush Facebook Group or our Boss Rush Discord.
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Featured Image Credit: PlayStation Blog
Source: PlayStation Blog
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