When the Kratos profile pictures think you’ve gone a bit too far, you may have gone a bit too far.
This week, Sony introduced to the world the worst-kept secret in gaming; the PlayStation 5 Pro. Since word first emerged of the mid-gen refresh, most of the conversation had been centered around one thing: the price.
The perpetual economic bin fire that is planet Earth meant that those with their sensible hats on were predicting a pretty steep increase from the standard PlayStation 5, which itself has seen price increases around the world.
However, few could have predicted the collective intake of breath when Sony‘s PlayStation Technical Presentation concluded with a dazzling blue screen informing viewers that the PlayStation 5 Pro will cost $700 / £700 / €800. A price to make even Kaz Hirai blush.
Subtly buried in a PlayStation Blog post was the news that if you’d like the honour of your £700 console not crashing to earth, you’ll have to pay extra for the stand. Got a load of physical PS5 games? That’ll be another £99. When the dust had settled and people had been treated for shellshock, I was left with one question: who is this for?
I use the PS5 more than most people on planet Earth. Since my review unit turned up in late 2020, it has been on for multiple hours per day, every day. I also have a fancy TV that I paid far too much money for, because I want to see games running at their absolute peak of performance. The PlayStation 5 Pro is designed for me. And yet, even I’m not sold.
Improvements to old games are great, but they are all games I’ve rinsed. Sure, it’ll mean that by the time I come to play Death Stranding 2 and GTA 6 on it, they’ll look amazing (more on GTA 6 later), but right now, I wasn’t exactly sprinting out to my local GameStation to stick a fiver down for one.
“Got a load of physical PS5 games? That’ll be another £99. When the dust had settled and people had been treated for shellshock, I was left with one question: who is this for?”
However, good idea or not, PlayStation 5 Pro will find its audience. Research firm Ampere Analysis expects PS5 Pro sales to reach a similar level to those of PS4 Pro, so this suggests there are plenty of people who will be seeking out PS5 Pro content, and they probably overlap with people who already read gaming media.
There’s also prior evidence of premium PlayStation products selling well, even when it was suggested they may struggle. As GamesIndustry.biz points out, the PlayStation Portal is the number one accessory by revenue this year in the UK, and the DualSense Edge is the number two controller despite being £200.
But let’s look outside of the hardcore gaming bubble. Games journalists on X are not a useful arbiter of how real people feel about games. What is a useful arbiter is my 7-a-side football group chat, and my local corner shop: so I asked both.
First, the football chat. These are the guys who play some games, and ask me every week what’s going on with GTA 6, and what to get their children for Christmas. One or two of them are hardcore enough that they told me they’d heard that PlayStation was doing a new console, and they fancied getting one.
This was when we all expected it to be roughly £600. Still a lot of money, but somewhere close to what you’d expect to pay for a premium console in 2024. When the price was announced last night, I received two messages.
“What the f*** is up with that PlayStation, it’s so expensive,” and “It doesn’t play discs?” It’s not the best starting point for the messaging, but we persevere. When I later explained all the price, the add-ons, and all the rest, I was told that they’re still getting one, for one reason alone: GTA 6.
When I asked the guy in my local corner shop what he thought, knowing he’s very into games, but doesn’t keep up with gaming news, he told me he’d heard on TikTok that they’d already sold out, and that GTA 6 was going to be exclusive to the Pro.
“When I later explained all the price, the add-ons, and all the rest, I was told that they’re still getting one, for one reason alone: GTA 6.”
Unsurprising misinformation aside, it did make me wonder what TikTok makes of it. If you’re too old to be in the TikTok mines, it’s the world’s most active and popular social media platform among young people. Alongside all the radicalisation, it’s also the arbiter of hype.
TikTok is part of the reason the PS5 was so hard to get at launch. It was the aspiration item for kids. Mr Beast was giving away 100 PS5s to kids, not 100 Xboxs. Parents were buying PS5 for their kids and shoving a camera in their face get their assuredly overwhelmed reaction.
It’s already started with the PS5 Pro. The PS5 Pro, just like the PS5 before it, will become a status item, and the must-have tech gift this Christmas. Kids can’t fathom why a £700 machine is that much more than a £400 machine, thus they can’t understand why their parents will turn sheet-grey when they’re begged for one for months.
Just wait until GTA 6 comes around and all the PS5 Pro boxes have GTA 6 on them. Ex-PlayStation boss Jim Ryan previously hinted that the GTA marketing rights would continue on PlayStation this generation before he dissolved like a ghost before the Concord disaster.
As much as it was an interesting presentation, while a few more frames in Alan Wake 2 will sell me on a PlayStation 5 Pro, that’s not what will cause long-dormant PS5 stock checkers to spin up again this November.
What will is the potential of games like GTA 6, a game that will be so ubiquitous across all media in a way that’s never been seen, or even close, and, more importantly for young people, “hype” anointing it as the next must-have item.
The price may not have completely sold ‘hardcore’ players yet, but maybe for Sony it doesn’t need to. If you’re gilded enough to afford a PlayStation 5 Pro, you’re not fighting with someone who’s thinking “Maybe I should build a PC,” you’re in a battle with someone who just watched Kai Cenat set 30 of them on fire in front of a crowd of tens of thousands.
