Sony finally pulled the shrink wrap off the PlayStation 5 Pro, and if you had "console costs more than a used Honda Civic" on your bingo card, congratulations.
The thing runs $699.99, and that's before you buy a disc drive, because apparently 2024 is the year we pretend physical media was a fever dream.
For that pile of American dollars, you get a beefed-up GPU, some AI upscaling wizardry Sony calls PSSR, and a promise of 60fps with ray tracing at the same time, which is the console equivalent of saying you can have your cake and eat it while also doing cardio.
There's no built-in disc drive and no vertical stand in the box, because nothing says "premium" like charging extra for the plastic you already own.
The internet, as you might expect, handled this with its trademark grace.
Half of X is posting memes of a PS5 Pro sitting on a stack of unpaid student loans, and the other half is explaining that a comparable gaming PC costs way more, so actually this is a bargain, you philistines.
Both sides are wrong and both sides are annoying, which is how you know it's a real console launch.
Here's the thing nobody wants to admit: the regular PS5 still plays every single game in the Pro's library.
It just makes the ones you already own look slightly sharper while your wallet files a missing persons report.
If you've got a 4K TV from 2018 that you bought on Black Friday and never calibrated, you will genuinely not notice the difference.
First, the enthusiasts who buy every mid-gen refresh like it's a tax write-off.
Second, the folks who never got a PS5 in the first place and figure they might as well skip to the good one.
That second group is the smart money, assuming they can find $700 lying around between now and the holidays.
Seven hundred bucks buys a Switch 2 whenever Nintendo gets around to it, a year of Game Pass, and enough leftover pizza to survive a six-month backlog.
Unless you're a Digital Foundry subscriber who pauses YouTube videos to count pixels, your current console is fine.
The real story isn't the hardware, it's the vibes.
Sony looked at a generation where people are already pinching pennies and said, "What if the console cost as much as a phone?" And honestly, they might get away with it, because gamers are a notoriously disciplined bunch who definitely don't cave the second a shiny new box appears on a shelf.
We're all very strong and principled and we will absolutely not preorder. **Our take:** The PS5 Pro is a luxury item cosplaying as a necessity, and Sony knows exactly who it's selling to.
If you've got the TV, the disposable income, and the compulsion, go wild.
Final Thoughts
Everyone else should sit this one out and let the price come down, because it will.