Vince Zampella Defends PS5 Pro Price, Says 'It's Actually Not That Bad'

Ah yes, let's listen to a multimillionaire on if $700 is affordable. Screw this guy.

You keep telling yourself that

I mean, the guy could sleep on a bed made out of PS5 Pro's and see no dent in the amount of money he has.

He’s right though. $700 pc wouldn’t quite do what this machine can

I'd actually have bought one at 700 if it had a drive. The no drive just irks me too much

"EA industry executive says higher prices are good"

I still love the fallacy of comparing to a pc that costs $700. You couldn't get bone china for the price of a Solo paper plate, either, but it just might be cheaper after a decade than a shed load of paper plates.

Anyone else find it exceedingly cringe how an industry currently locked in a battle of who can addict as many people into continues revenue streams, and it's media apologists are all rushing out to wallpaper over objectively poor value hardware and are telling everyone that that should accept as value while also constantly firing thousands of people?

"Here's what you'll accept as good value. Also get the lube, $80 games with surprise mechanics are coming soon! But it's a really good value if you think about it."

Let's all remember the recent Apex price hikes. For anyone pumping money into this guy's game, poor value for money must not register for them to begin with.

@Sequel lol same. $700 ain’t that bad when the base ps3 was $600 almost 20 years ago

@RubyCarbuncle if it looked as good as the ps5 pro I might

@Doctor_BK The PS3 was a cutting edge media player as well as a console. It also included full PS1 and PS2 support. Even then it wasn’t worth the money for a lot of people. Even though it came out pre-financial crash. Comparing a mid-gen refresh to Sony’s first HD console that also boasted a bunch of features is quite frankly madness. Features like…. an actual disc drive. The inflation argument also doesn’t hold when wages have not risen in line with inflation.

He’s right though. For me, it’s a lot. But for what you’re getting, it isn’t. I may get one only because I’ll be able to sell my PS5 easily and won’t be buying a disc drive.

@nessisonett don’t forget cost of raw materials going up, labor going up, shipping going up, demand going up. It’s not just inflation that’s rising, since COVID everything costs more. The more I reflect on the price, the more I realize it makes sense. However, the actual noticeable difference to the naked eye seems like the upgrade isn’t worth it, in my opinion.

The disc drive thing is a big greedy mistake.

Anybody connected to EA in anyway should never be allowed to talk. Incompetence is a job requirement.

@Doctor_BK no one is buying a PC for $700 , it defeats the purpose. unless you’re just joking , i can’t tell

reason why the ps5 pro price is bad : Overpriced as a console & too cheap for a (average) PC, so its in a gray area of not making sense & being a waste.

In the UK, for the total including the PS5 Pro, the disc drive, and stand, the complete set costs $1,085 U.S (inclusive of tax)

Try AUD1199 in Australian dollars (not sure what the conversion rate to dollarydoos are). The AUD 1035 is if you're doing a straight conversion from USD... Playstation then adds and additional 16% (ok - being generous 10% of that is GST).

If you want to buy it all - console+stand+drive = AUD1410 (tax inclusive) which is about USD953.... so not as bad as some (is that good?.....)

@B_Lindz in the quote, he does acknowledge it won't be affordable for everyone, but just that the console is worth the price of admission, essentially.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare

For comparison, the complete set in the UK is 1607 Australian dollarydoos as well. Ridiculous, eh?

@kevinm360 how about they show us.... for a full experience of the advantage. At the moment, there's just not enough info to make real judgements - but I can judge that AUD1400 IS A LOT OF MONEY.

@kevinm360 It's crazy - and my heart goes out to everyone in the UK... which I had thought was a really good market for Sony. Seems like it's good, but not for the reasons I thought.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare I'm in the same boat, I will "sadly" be missing out on PS5 Pro and keeping the money aside for a PS6 when the time comes. Buying the Pro at that price (regardless of benefits) feels worse than double-dipping, especially when there isn't a selection of games "Only playable on PS5 Pro".

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare PS generally have a good market share in the UK, but the majority of players are still buying PS4 versions of software. I think with games starting to drop support for last gen, Sony will try push the PS5 Pro towards people as a better upgrade than if they were to move to the PS5 now. (PS4 Pro and Slim done better than the OG model here)

I mean he's right. I'd honestly be surprised if Sony are making anything on this machine. But console gaming is supposed to be more entry level. On the other hand it is an enthusiast model. I'm 50/50 on whether it should be as is. Or cheaper parts and cheaper to buy

@kevinm360 Actually, no, it's not. The price of admission for what? "Pro" visuals for Sony's non-existant first-party library? The VAST majority of games barely even require the power of a PS4 to run perfectly fine. There is a tiny portion of games that need the power of a PS5, and basically nothing that actually NEEDS a PS5 Pro's power. Do you know what the actual price of admission is for console gaming? You can buy a used Nintendo Switch Lite right now for $100. $850 for a PS5 Pro is one of the most tone deaf marketing decisions I have ever seen, let alone how tone deaf some shiz-for-brains millionaire sounds saying it's "worth the cost" at a time when people can barely pay rent and put food on the table.

I was very disappointed by the price, but after looking into building a PC, I've come to realize that it would cost significantly more to build a worthwhile PC that beats it. Add PC problems like occasional mysterious troubleshooting and waiting two years for certain PlayStation games (often among the year's best games) and I've come to accept that I'll probably just buy the PS5 Pro.

I won't lie, if I had more money, I would go with the PC, or better yet, get the PS5 Pro AND a PC! But as it is, the PS5 Pro is affordable for me, while a good updatable PC is slightly out of my desired price range.

@B_Lindz by all means, I don't agree that its worth the price either, but was just acknowledging that he did state himself that he knows it won't be affordable for many.

These millionaires view video games as a luxury and would probably shrug at us and say that this console isn't for us if we can't afford it. Similar case when Don Mattrick said Xbox players without an internet connection should stick with the 360 instead of buying the Xbox One. They justify it as it being aimed at a different audience from us (whether that audience actually exists or not is another thing)

@kevinm360 ironically it's their luxury view of games that leads them to spend far more making them for a mythical audience than they can actually make back from their real market leading to bankruptcy. Only in gaming do executives get 7 figures to lose money by not understanding their own market

@gipsojo Fair but make sure you've factored the total cost of what would or wouldn't need to be upgraded over time, game prices, subs, the fact that you probably wouldn't need a PS6 in 2-3 years etc. It's absolutely more expensive up front no question, just run your costs over years on both options if you really were considering the PC jump before making your decision.

@Doctor_BK @nessisonett Also keep in mind that a lot of people that bought launch PS3 were A/V enthusiasts, not gamers, that bought it because it was a decent BD player for less money than pretty much any other BD player at the time because it was subsidized by gamers.

And also remember that despite that it was a cataclysmic sales disaster that nearly wiped PlayStation off the map had they not salvaged the situation by stripping the hardware down and massively slashing the price. And that was in a bull economy.

But yeah as you said, the biggest problem is that it's not an upgrade that justifies the price. Sony is charging premium for modest upgrades. If it was a beastly upgrade for the price it would be one thing. But it's not the monster people insist it is. Cerney himself didn't pretend otherwise. They want to roll back electronics to the 80s. Only the cool kids with rich parents can afford a real Sony Walkman.

The outrage against the missing disc drive and stand is a minor thing. The price is for enthusiastic gamers who know that the improvements are tiny. Remember how hated the Portal was in here amongst commentators? Well, it is a success and now people respect the device. I suspect the pro will sell pretty well until PS6 arrives.

@EfYI " The price is for enthusiastic gamers who know that the improvements are tiny."

This statement is true and I wholeheartedly agree. That's the PROBLEM. It's why this signals an exit ramp from console for many. The Bose Audio of gaming. It has a market. That market isn't people that know better.

The Portal was different. It's actually the CHEAPEST option of comparable products as long as one ONLY plays on PlayStation.

@nomither6 "no one is buying a PC for $700 , it defeats the purpose." If you are not a gamer that comment is correct but seeing as a lot of console gamers who are baulking at the ps5 Pro price are stating that they are thinking of ditching the ps5 etc and going to buy or build a gaming rig then zampellas comment is very valid. There are going to be a lot of people who know very little about pc gaming and exactly how much it costs to have a rig that performs to the exact same levels of fidelity the ps5 or ps5 Pro do being very disappointed when they spend £700 - £800 and it just dosnt deliver. You know what it takes to build a gaming PC and you know how much it costs too and you know the point I'm making here. The ps5 Pro is very expensive for the casual gamer who should stick with their ps5's but for the enthusiast gamers who can't justify spending over a grand on a gaming rig then the ps5 Pro is an acceptable price point. I'm still not certain if I'll get one myself but I'm not saying I won't ever either.

@Northern_munkey yeah I’d agree with that, very well put.

My only concern is what it potentially means for PS6, admittedly a fair ways down the road - will we be returning to a base level that console gamers are more accustomed to, or are Sony going to push for the best tech they can at this new price point and hope the PS5 Pro has taken the shock of that price tag away? Time will tell but it makes me wonder if that might be a bad omen for more casual fans.

@B_Lindz
He didn’t say it was affordable, in fact he said many people won’t be able to afford it, he said it was reasonable. So let us also be reasonable.

The comparisons with the PS3 launch model are a bit flawed:

You could watch Blurays for the first time, and you haven’t had a cheaper PS3 you wanted to replace. Now, almost everyone interested in PS5 has already got one, the base model was not cheap either, and most people usually have little use for two consoles of the same system (guys with holiday cottages like this EA guy aside).

And while I get the price based on the high manufacturing costs: Making the PS5 Pro was a mistake!

@thefourfoldroot1 It's over 80% more than PS5 discless launch price, 4 years later for a 45% GPU bump, bigger ssd and a scaler. "Reasonable" isn't the right word here. @EfYI had the right of it.

@SegaBlueSky remember the rumor they wanted to charge $600 for PS5 but backed down to 500 when Xbox did 500. Then raised the price to 550 everywhere Xbox wasn't relevant. MS has hinted the next Xbox will be more expensive, while Sony does this and enjoys the premium image and default market.

I do think some of the "pc is too expensive" crowd are about to get a rude awakening about what console gaming is going to cost in the coming generations. They're counting on $500-600 consoles forever and ever. They might be buying Nintendo and Series S2 forever.

Reading some of the comments. My god!
The cost of labour, shipping, and raw materials has risen alarmingly. Inflation is through the roof in every western economy. That’s why everything has risen in price.

In a world where rents, food, energy, the real essentials in life, have risen alarmingly, I would be embarrassed to complain this much about an enthusiast edition of a luxury gaming device.

I understand that people are disappointed that they are priced out, or they feel the benefits are not aligned with the costs or whatever, I won’t be getting it basically for this reason, but It’s like people have no concept of what’s going on around them and feel entitled for everything to remain the same for them. A little perspective people.

And yes, if the economy doesn’t recover and people’s wages rise, then yes, we will all be feeling it in the wallet when the PS6 releases.

@Frmknst This „base PS5 not yet fully utilized“ is just wrong, and you know it. There are plenty of games (also from Sony, e.g. SM2) which uses the CPU and the memory system effectively and get a lot out of the boxes, while other games like BMW are certainly showing the system‘s limits.

Please stop telling this story. It sounds nice, but it just isn’t true.

@NEStalgia
Why would you compare it to the cost 4 years ago. The cost to make it has obviously risen. A better comparison is surely to the costs now, plus the cost of the objective improvement of the bigger hardrive. If you align with current market prices (series X with 2tb, I don’t think there is such a PS5 model yet) that is $600. This pro is $100 more for the improvements. I think that’s fair, just a bit rich for my blood considering I have a perfectly good PS5 already and the majority of games I like don’t push it at all.

People should stop aligning the price with what they think is fair, and start understanding what is the actual required cost for this thing to even exist for the few people who want it.

@Frmknst

with smart consumers there would be no capitalism

That a meme?

@thefourfoldroot1

for the few people who want it

I bet many want it but not at that price

@torquex
Sure, I’m one of them honestly, but this at a lower price is likely just not profitable, and thus not possible. Sony are a business. No point being pissed about that when it’s why these things even exist at all.

This product is for a niche of a niche. Hell, I’m a person who very much enjoys, and feels I get good value out of, my PSVR2 and Portal, and I’m not getting one as I don’t feel the cost is worth it.

Not everything is for us. Things we might have bought before the economy went to crap and our disposable income dropped, like an upgrade to an already current gen console, we won’t anymore. That’s life. My take home pay has dropped by £300 a month just over this year, and everything from my rent to heating and food has risen, I’m feeling it, but costs have similarly gone up for businesses so they have to raise their prices or cancel products (like we’ve seen with many games, which leads to layoffs etc). Even if I’m not getting it I’m happy this exists for those who feel it’s worthwhile for them.

Sony doesn't worth easy money from now on. They just stopped delivering their promises after the ps4 era. Ps5 and ps vr2 are minimum effort products and they don't care as long as the cash flows.

If you got a regular PS5 at launch, are going to get the Pro and paid £10 a month for PS+ for as long as you've had it, you'll have paid a total of £1,620. Even without PS+, that's £1,150. You could've got an amazing PC for that first figure and a pretty good one for the second figure - and paid less for all your games too. And that PC isn't going to be made totally redundant in a few years when the PS6 comes out. And you'd have various things we keep asking for like PS3 emulation - and even folders!

The difference between now and when the ps3 came out was the economy wasn't on its arse and people had disposable income.

Rent and peoples mortgages have doubled.

Bread and milk have doubled in price.

Gas and energy bills have doubled

Insurances even though slither of people ever have to claim on them have some how soared upwards.

Electronic goods and PC parts aren't coming down after a year or.more on the market they are going up.

But all this is happening while 99% of wages haven't really changed that much since the ps3, unless your a skilled worker or working high up in a company and even then due to all the prices raising, our wages haven't doubled.

So yes 700 or 1000+ is alot of money for something which may or may not hit 60fps at 4k.

I was hitting 4k 60 on PC nearly 10 years ago.
Prices just haven't come down.

But wages are just stagnant.and haven't gone up

@Matroska bingo! I'm amazed at how well it works on so many to offer the deal of paying for your $1200 purchase in just 5 easy payments $399.

@thefourfoldroot1 I think you're missing the point of your own argument. All of those reasons you gave are reasons why discretionary items can not afford to be increasing in price as disposable income has crashed through the gutter. What you're describing is a world where discretionary items price themselves into decreasing sales yielding decreasing production thus decreasing labor market, and decreased participation in the economy by increasing population. Or TL:DR: recession/depression.

Additionally Sony went from losing money on each unit to making a profit. It's not like the old days but production efficiencies WERE found and production cost decreased. You act like 2090s should cost more than 4090s because they're 4 years old 😂

All well and good if you got the games to back it up. Needed to announce some big games with a price like that. Some people feel there hasn't been a true first party ps5 game yet. Sony have wasted resources this year with concorde and tlou factions. Make some great games first, then try and rinse us for a pro with no drive or stand 😂

@thefourfoldroot1

This product is for a niche of a niche

Each to their own I guess but I don't buy that, it's like when some claim "enthusiast" product , it's a load of spiel or glib you know "the glib phrases soon roll off the tongue" like the dictionary tells us.

We're all "enthusiastic gamers"

Money doesn't make you more "enthusiastic" it just means you can afford to purchase said "expensive" product.

@NEStalgia
No, I’m not missing the point. Discretionary income has fallen because costs have increased to make and distribute everything and thus they have to be sold at a higher price. People’s incomes didn’t immediately fall leading to less spare cash, rather prices immediately went up for everything that we buy. You are acting like Sony, MS etc are immune to this. When they have to pay more for materials, more for manufacturing, more for wages, more for shipping, of course they have to increase prices. And if a product becomes too expensive to sell well (we will see with this, but Sony obviously feel it’s worth releasing) then it simply won’t be made and the money that would have been spent on it would be funnelled elsewhere were there would be a bigger return on investment.

This is an enthusiast product that isn’t going to ever be the biggest selling model. They have to price it to make a profit as there are a vanishingly small number of new customers this brings. If this wasn’t available the same customer would almost certainly buy the base model. PlayStation makes money on software.

@Jswift56

Some people feel there hasn't been a true first party ps5 game yet

I'm sure Sony said a while ago that there will be no Sony studio games till early/mid 2025?

I'm interested to see how Assassins Creed Shadows plays on the pro, i think the release date for this game is mid november (15/09/2024?) not sure what the release date is for the pro, i wonder if there will be a bundle deal? can't think of any other game coming out in november?

If you're being defended by people like former Blizzard exec Mike Ybarra and now an EA exec, you're probably doing something wrong.

It's not reasonable or good value. For anyone thinking you can't get a PC for the same value there's an ign article that begs to differ https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.ign.com/articles/you-can-build-a-pc-equivalent-to-the-ps5-pro-heres-how&ved=2ahUKEwjV2-O3_cuIAxWRQEEAHdOsEJ4Q0PADKAB6BAgaEAE&usg=AOvVaw2N_MPiUCt4cbOVkPWUlOBX

Also a PC does SO much more than a ps5 so the value difference is actually immense

@Blaze215 Not to get into the whole value argument, because I think that's ultimately just really subjective, but that article doesn't really present a compelling case.

The PS5 Pro's biggest selling points are PSSR and its ray tracing capabilities. To then present an AMD GPU that lacks those selling points as an "equivalent" alternative, is at least misleading.

@Blaze215
That’s nowhere near equivalent. I’ve been out of the PC game for a while, but even I can see that. Now, if you were to consider online a “must have” (I don’t) and presume you wouldn’t play many plus games, then added the cost of this up for the lifetime of a console and added this to the console price, then and only then could you say a PC could be equivalent value. If you had the money to spend all at once.
But it’s really a moot argument as PCs and consoles are fundamentally different user cases for most console gamers.

@B_Lindz are you really comparing a switch lite to the ps5?

It’s not comparable with past consoles when taking inflation into account as those consoles all came with a drive. Add the drive price to the pro and the like-for-like price is much higher.

I know that might be unpopular opinion but the issue here is that some people wants a console as powerful as RTX 4090 and get it for 500$ still. I'm not saying the Pro is that powerful but again this is an option. Like there are some PC gamers get RTX 4060 and play all the games in lower resolution/ quality, there are also some gamers who get RTX 4090. PS5 owners can still play the same games that Pro runs at lower quality/ resolution/ frame rate but the Pro offers better experience and it's more expensive.

@Ainu20 value may be subjective, but if most people do not see value in this than the majority have the same subjective opinion.

Yes agreed on these selling points but if you want to buy a PC that plays ps5 games pretty well AND does everything else a PC does. Forfeiting pssr and 'better' ray tracing which in mine and most other people's opinions are negligible improvements then the ps5 pro is not good value and the PC equivalent is a much better purchase

@thefourfoldroot1 I disagree, it's pretty much the same as a ps5. I can do without Improvements that require cerny to zoom into the screen for me to see. It may be a moot point to someone who won't consider a PC at any level but some people may. Also all the other benefits of having a PC such as a far far superior library of games now including ps5 'exclusives'

@Blaze215
But what you are doing then is basically comparing it to a base PS5. Which is a valid thing to do of course, but then you have to build one for a base PS5 price to be roughly equivalent.

Sony's own pc strategy made their fanbase considering other options. Comparing price points and performance gains. Do you want the best presentation of sony's first party games? PS5 pro isn't your choice..Nvidia has your back.

@Blaze215 You can't really approach the PS5 Pro from a mindset that PSSR is a negligable improvement. It's kinda the entire point of the machine. We don't know how well it performs yet, but if it's closer to DLSS than FSR, it's anything but negligable.

Judging from your comment, you're not particularly interested in PSSR, as is your right. It just means you're not really the target audience. That's what I mean by value being subjective, if you're not interested in what the machine offers, you're not going to see much value in it, while others might.

Same with the argument that a PC does more. There is no question that is true, but there are a lot of people out there that might not need or want anything more than a gaming machine and use a phone, tablet or lightweight laptop for all the rest. Again, subjective value.

It might seem like I'm defending the PS5 Pro here, but I say all this stuff as someone who doesn't want to buy it at the current asking price. At roughly €150-200 less, I probably would, but as it stands it's a bit steep for me personally.

Another fool who doesn't the know the difference between price and value.

@B_Lindz He didn't say that.

I believe Sony really wants to be Apple and this price point is a test. Can they offer high priced hardware and still get the buy in? I think they might.

@Artois2 They both play almost all the same third-party games. Yes, I am comparing the PS5 Pro to the Switch Lite. One of these consoles is an affordable option to console gaming and the other is a shameless $850 cash grab. Nearly every option to get into console gaming will cost around half or less than half the cost of the PS5 Pro.

@RubyCarbuncle I just find it funny that people get so upset about console prices rising. Compared to other products. Like everything has risen these last years and decades, how could inflation not be an argument?
Im not saying im happy with it.

But damn have you seen smartphone prices lately? Iphone pro max going for $1600. How about gpu cards, top Nvidia cards used to be what $1000 10 years ago, its now $1600. Houses? Seen those prices lately? I bet you guys seen your grocery prices going up?
How much do you think dev salaries cost nowadays? Im guessing that has gone up as well.

Prices of everything have gone up through the years, in some markets, like smartphones it goes up incrementally every year. But somehow in the console space nothing is supposed to go up or else everyone gets in a frenzy.
I can honestly say, that i thought console prices would have risen a while ago, we were just lucky they kept subsidizing it. Seeing how much the components cost in these consoles if you make it yourself, its a fair price.

Again, not saying im happy with the price from a consumer standpoint. But the outrage, i really dont understand, but hey thats just me

@RubyCarbuncle Lots of armchair CEOs around, thats why u have so many opinions, but most dont really have experience with running billion dollar companies.

Maybe people should start building their PS5 Pro equivalent PCs for $1000 and sell them for $700. See how much profit they can make, seeing as they think $700 is an extortionate amount of money for it.

People should listen to themselves a bit.
"people dont have money to buy this because cost of living is through the roof"
so you expect that something like the ps5 pro, not a necessity, not the base device, pretty much a more powerful boutique item, cost the same as the base model (if you consider inflation people want this thing to be cheaper than a launch ps5).

I'm not saying that $700 or your local equivalent isnt expensive. Hell I'm from Brazil and this will probably cost me far more than any european or australian here.
But people really are complaining that a deluxe item costs a deluxe price.
If PC is that much better go buy that, if you think base ps5 is enough stick to that. If you are complaining about it this thing probably isnt for you in the first place.

Edit: I just want to say, it really is not that bad and it is most likely a fair price, you dont need a stand, stop bitching about that.

@nessisonett In the Netherlands that is not true at moment. Salaries are catching up for the first time in decades here. I agree the thing is to expensive at the moment if it had a diskdrive included i would have bought it day one.

@B_Lindz A Switch lite is a downgrade more affordable with less options that is a really stupid comparison. It's a handheld that you can't connect to your TV with less power.

@Blaze215 That case looks god awful yeah it will look great in my living room we're I guess if you put it out of sight. 😂🤣

@Flaming_Kaiser Catching up for the first time in decades implies it is true.

No lies detected.

Inflation hits everyone, but when you're a studio head, inflation means games cost more to make, so you charge more for them, cushioning the impact of inflation on you and your company. My employer didn't increase my wage to cushion me from inflation, so yeah, $1,000CAD for a console is very much bad.

Would love to know what people think is incorrect about his statement. He's absolutely right.

@ZeroSum Wait, are u saying if you were a business owner and costs of production rose. You would not increase the price of your product? But rather make sure all of your employees are cushioned against inflation?

Thats noble and all, but really doesnt make business sense. You would lose money on your products because of rising production costs and you would increase employee salaries, losing even more money. How would you break even? Or better yet, make profit to continue ur business

I'm gonna make myself impopular: the ps5 pro is the best of the best. It's the Lamborghini of consoles. It has 30+ terraflops, which is insane. So yeah of course it's gonna be expensive. It's only meant for people who can afford it. I don't need it. My ps5 plays all these games perfectly. If you can afford it, good for you, i guess.

@LogicStrikesAgain no, that's not what I said. At no point in my comment do I say "if I were a business owner I would...". What I did do was compare Zampella's situation where he can increase what is charged, to cushion himself from inflation against those of us that can't. Average Joe feels inflation a lot more than a studio head.

@ZeroSum You said u understood that production costs were increasing, because of inflation, therefore games were more expensive to make. Then u proceeded to say that studio heads increase prices to cushion their company. Afterwards u said your own employer didnt cushion u from inflation. U might not have said my exact words, but it sure seemed as if you implied what i said in my post. But i may have inferred wrong, in that case i take it back

Just out of curiousity, if you wanna tell me, if you were a business owner? If cost of production rose, would you cushion your company by increasing prices? Or cushion all your employees as you said you would have wanted your employer to do?

@LogicStrikesAgain "Maybe people should start building their PS5 Pro equivalent PCs for $1000 and sell them for $700. See how much profit they can make, seeing as they think $700 is an extortionate amount of money for it."

No, Sony's not losing $300 on each sale. But, heck I'd love to do a Sony and sell that $1000 PC for $975, then get to make a 30% cut of every single game sold on the PCs I sell and charge monthly or in annual payments if anyone wants to play any games online, that sounds like a solid business plan to me. Too bad Sony thought of it first. Should I put you down for 2? Orders ship in November.

@thefourfoldroot1 @LogicStrikesAgain I think that still misses the point with discretionary spend. BECAUSE of all that discretionary spend has gone way down. A discretionary item needs to MEET its market at the pricing that that market is willing to pay, as the MAJORITY of the market has SIGNIFICANTLY less discretionary spending ability, these discretionary products need to be meeting that market. Instead the companies are focused exclusively on making only the most premium products sold the the wealthy segments of society because boardrooms decided that selling low volume at high margin means they can fire more of their workers and close more of their real estate and make the same or more revenue with less expense. Why make a million widgets for a dollar when you can make one widget for a million dollars? Your bottom line is better with the latter. The effect however is the complete and total annihilation of the market economy which is going to end in a very, very, very, VERY bad place if this continues.

To the later exchange with ZeroSum, this is where things are headed off the rails. yes, buinesses charge other business more. It's a big circle jerk. They've all increased their costs, charge each other more, while all mange to not keep paying labor more. The top end labor they've increased double to triple wages, the low to mid labor they've essentially not increased at all. This is where it all breaks down. The consumer is no longer even a functional part of the economy. The long term implications of that are extremely bad. Even for the top. We're on a giant landmine.

@thefourfoldroot1 It's not like we're talking about a substantial upgrade for a high price tag. If they could not build a machine that represents a significant upgrade where the price represents obvious value, they should not have built the console at all. If they ran the abacus and figured out they could make a buck doing it exemplifies why people are unhappy with them, they're producing half-azzed products for extreme prices simply because they know they have enough clueless whales with large paychecks looking to compensate for something willing to funnel money at them for minimal return. That doesn't mean they should be immune from getting called out on that. We're seeing companies without price pressure through competition simply charging whatever they want with impunity. That's not "reasonable", that's a broken monopolistic practice.

And despite saying that there's still some people that I'd recommend it to, only because I know console is still right for them, they'd go crazy trying to do PC, but they kind of need the Pro because they're not enjoying the base PS5, which is, honestly a terrible console, launched too soon with too weak hardware that chokes on it's own generation games out of the gate. PS5 is the best PS4 model ever.

@Ainu20 I both agree and disagree. While RSR and FSR are way behind Nvidia, it's not like AMD does not HAVE an upscaler, and despite some influencers showing comparisons, maybe maybe not paid, maybe, maybe not playing games arranged by Sony to show off their best, I find it EXTREMELY difficult to believe that Sony in their very first AI scaling attempt could leapfrog years of AMD, a much bigger tech and AI player than themselves, and match Nvidia the king of AI in their first attempt.

Even for AMD, there are some games that look GREAT and some that don't. So far we're seeing what Sony wants us to see, which isn't different than the marketing tricks AMD is known to use. Also remember that AMD cards support MULTIPLE tiers of FSR/RSR and the performance mode is the one that looks incredibly shoddy and I suspect is the equivalent of what the consoles are using. Quality and ultra mode do way better, so you can't just look at PS5/XSX and say "oh, that's all AMD scaling can do?" They're not necessarily using the best AMD scaling, even if AMD is behind Nvidia, and conversely AMD scaling does better with more modest scaling efforts rather than trying to take 720p to 4k which is what some games have been doing. Nvidia fares better there. We'll see what happens when it launches, but it's very difficult to believe Sony could best years of AMD R&D in one try and jump to Nvidia levels that's been doing this for a long time, and it's also hard to believe Sony's silicon is more up to the task than Ada and Blackwell silicon, otherwise Sony wouldn't be bothering with a PS5 Pro and would be employing their silicon in datacenter applications to compete with Nvidia and AMD for that huge huge pile of investor cash.

As for raytracing, again, that card in the IGN build is much better than what the PS5 base has, and the PS5 Pro is still AMD raytracing. Either way raytracing applications simply favor Nvidia for the forseeable and that applies to PS5 Pro and an AMD PC build both.

It gets dicy when we talk "equivalent" machine at a price point. The PC can do a lot of things (in gaming) that the PS5 Pro can't touch even if it's "weaker" and "weaker" isn't necessarily "weaker" depending on how the options are set up and what's important to the player.

That IGN build doesn't look unreasonable. I'd recommend not going quite so lean to most, but, it's absolutely reasonable. I think you'd have to do bench testing to see where one ends up better than the other, and in the end, you wouldn't get a conclusive result. It' comes back to if you want the advantages of taking the chains off on PC or if you want the no-fuss console. People have really been overestimating what the consoles do. New gens, at day of launch seem to (so far) be great values compared to the launch day equivalent PC, but once you get into the generation the consoles no longer fall in value and the PC parts do, making the value equivalent over a generation shockingly close.

Again we can look at the little Asus Ally on the AMD Z1 chip. That's a PC chip, far less powerful than a PS5 on paper, it's not going to be a 4k output machine, but it can hold it's own surprisingly close to PS5 performance for a significant portion of games at appropriate resolutions, running on a battery. Today's PCs aren't Packard Bells.

Yeah, I'm passing on the 32X Pro, thanks.

Entitlement really is one of the major widespread societal issues particularly on the West, a fact clearly demonstrated by this ridiculous outrage over the Pro's price tag.

1) It's totally optional. If you can't afford it, why do you care?

2) Most people complaining, do have the option to trade-in or sell their current PS5. If you paid $400+ for your current console, why is it such a big deal to shell out another $400 to cover for the difference? And if it is a big deal somehow, see point number 1.

3) The Neo Geo was introduced in 1997 for $650. Adjusted for inflation, it would cost $1,275 today. Yeah...

4) The 3DO launched in 1993 for $700. In 2024's dollars worth? $1,525. Hell yeah.

5) A GPU that would offer about the same level of performance and features of a PS5 Pro would cost, alone, around the same $700 of the Pro today.

"Ok, but it's still not worth it for me..." Well, it is for me. See point number 1 again, please.

@NEStalgia

You say:

“ If they could not build a machine that represents a significant upgrade where the price represents obvious value, they should not have built the console at all. ”

You really are thinking too much into this, and are actually at risk of descending into hyperbole. Also, what does it hurt you if others can afford to get a more powerful system and think it’s good value to them? You are a PC gamer, you should be used to that 🤷‍♂️

I’ll refer you to my first comment:

“ The reason this is £700 is because people will pay it. If they wouldn’t, it would either be marginally cheaper or it just wouldn’t exist.”

Costs have gone up so the price goes up, if Sony didn’t think people would pay the price they wouldn’t make it. It’s not complicated.

They are under no obligation to cater to the masses, they can release a niche device if they want and it causes no harm. The fact top end PC GPUs exist doesn’t mean the lower level market is destroyed, just like releasing this doesn’t mean the base PS5 market will not be catered to. It will still be the biggest market. Let’s just let people enjoy what they want without saying it shouldn’t be made.

Also, the PS5 is not a “terrible console” going purely by capability at release benchmarked against high end PCs, it is actually better than the PS4 at release by quite a significant margin. The problem is the economy has meant people didn’t switch and devs had to maintain support for PS4.

Did I miss Sony's announcement that they are discontinuing the PS5 in November? At the same time as they release a mandatory update to all existing PS5 and 4s that does nothing other than render the system useless and displays a full screen advert advising you need PS5 pro or you cannot game on PS again?
I'm guessing I did based on all this outrage over an optional system that me ( and probably many others) will buy and accept it is a reasonable cost for an optional premium accessory!
I did forget the age old rule that the price you sell any item must be the same or less than a similar item sold decades ago!!!!

@thefourfoldroot1 "what does it hurt you"

Right, I jumped ship and followed better value at higher initial cost, however, I'm still a customer of Sony's for the time being on the hardware front, and so long as they support PC will continue to be on the software front. I still have standing to voice my concern that Sony is eroding the trust relationship between vendor and client through peddling objectively poor value propositions as value. Whether I am a Pro customer or not, that approach to the business relationship with the client permeates beyond a single SKU and will affect their entire product stack well beyond the Pro itself into the future. The Pro is the tip of the iceberg, along with others, representing their intentions of how they view their customer relationships, and it's not a healthy one.

Yes, Sony knows there is a market that will pay the price, just as King knows there is a market that will spend $10,000 on Candy Crush, and that market has significant overlap. Refer to the statement about unhealthy relationships.

"Under no obligation to cater to the masses."

They're a CONSOLE vendor. By definition their obligation is to cater to the masses. That's who consoles are FOR. If their business was to cater to enthusiast niches instead of the masses they should resurrect Vaio and start making glass tube custom loop rigs. if they think they're above the masses, then I think we've figured out why they're making SINGLE DIGIT margin.

The problem is the mid-gen consoles in general. The PS5 may have been a big leap above base PS4, but it wasn't a huge leap vs the Pro or the 1X (especially 1X.) They already had a console on the market that closed that gap well, but they discontinued that one and released this one in its place, which while better was not close enough to being ready for future engine tech to actually be suitable for the job. Thus the "4 Pro Plus" meme, making the new one the "PS4 Pro Plus Ultra." They released the PS5 about 2 years too early in terms of the tech it needed to have to be a genuine generational leap. Being trapped at blurry 60fps or 30fps kinda nice gfx is not where the 9th generation ever should have been.

They could offer different SKUs with different storage options at difference prices, like they used to do (particularly in the PS3 era). They could have a cheaper 1TB SKU without controller and sell it for $600 and make a greater profit on that than they would make on the 2TB model with controller at $700 (in the U.S.)

Some people already have a PS5 and have no need for another controller, or they already have extra storage they bought that they can re-use for the Pro model after they sell their regular PS5. I just mean if there are configuration options when ordering at the official PlayStation store there could be a range of pricing that makes the product a better deal.

@NEStalgia Hehe i know they dont lose $300 on each console. It was more meant as a thought exercise for people to realize the price isnt that extortionate, cause you cant build that for the same price. Im not expecting they subsidize all their products if it doesnt make sense. This isnt gonna sell in large volumes so that strategy isnt gonna work well. But are you saying you find it unreasonable that they sell a product with a profit margin? Or do you just think the profit margins are too large for this console?

Regarding your comments on PSN costs and their 30% cut on games selling through their platform.

Im confused, do you find it unreasonable that they get a cut from games sold on their platform? That happens on every platform including steam.

And also, the whole paying for online. Isnt that how they maintain PSN? If PSN was maintained by extra and premium alone, whole of Playstation Network will probably need to be shutdown. I mean, running and maintaining PSN probably costs a lot of money. Everybody seems to be wanting everything for free these days.

Again im no expert in the financials, im just guessing its not cheap to maintain. I have no idea how steam does it

@LogicStrikesAgain The Sony model, and Sony in particular is the one that brought this model to gaming, as Nintendo and Sega did not really utilize it previously, is the "Gillette" razor and blades model. Sell the hardware cheap/at a loss, and then make back money on every consumable sold after it. That's the console model Sony established. Nintendo and Sega (N64 aside) simply designed hardware to be affordable but still at a profit, in order to get a large player base and sell games.

The problem with PS in general, not just the Pro, is for some reason they decided to start competing with PC on the hardware front, and have absorbed ever escalating hardware prices to do it. One could say Xbox, too, but Xbox also brought out the S, which people mock them for, but it is their better selling console for sure.

The point is "selling hardware at a profit" conflicts with the console ecosystem business model where the games make the money due to markups. Not just the 30% cut but also the $10-15 platform licensing fee baked into the game price. The business model they built PS on is not the same as selling a TV. (Which they're also losing at)

Funny how for PC games, including big ones like Elite, the revenue from selling THE GAME pays for the online services as part of the cost of producing the game. Yet consoles need service fees for the online services. Funny how Steam, and even GoG (CDPR) can fund cloud saves off the revenue of selling games as part of their services yet PS needs to charge $80/yr. People seem to find a lot of excuses to justify being charged in secondary and tertiary ways for things. How does Steam do it? They sell video games. At profit. Profit enough to cover services offered, whole also still making profit. How can steam do it whole the big corps cant? Because Valve is privately owned, and thus is not beholden to shareholders who demand double, triple, quadruple earnings every 3 months requriring the business to not only produce outsize profits but to extract every last possible penny from the market that could potentially exist at all like a refining operation. In privately held business, it's ok to become billionaires and not trillionaires, thus putting excess cash into improving the product and it's value offering, thus cementing it as the #1 chosen product.

@NEStalgia
There are so many…I just…I don’t know where to start with that

“objectively poor value propositions”

No. Not objective at all, especially when we haven’t seen what it can do. The closest you can get is “objectively expensive compared to old consoles, unless adjusted for inflation”.

“ They're a CONSOLE vendor. By definition their obligation is to cater to the masses.”

Which they do with the PS5. This is an enthusiasts upgrade. That’s all. It doesn’t damage relationships.

“ They released the PS5 about 2 years too early in terms of the tech it needed to have to be a genuine generational leap. ”

Ignoring that the time to move to next gen is mainly dictated by chip manufacturers, also that “genuine generational leap” is subjective (for me just the reduction in loading times is a big deal, more than a few more res’s certainly) sure, Sony could have waited 2 years (or 5 or 10) but they would have given MS too big a lead had they done so. Ironically perhaps a case of MS being too much competition lol.

@thefourfoldroot1 No, it's objectively poor value. It's barely a bandaid over the mediocre PS5 to begin with. A modest GPU bump and mostly a console "do over" to include a decent scaler like they should have included years ago but didn't, where even the AMD discrete cards had better scaling present despite being behind AMD.

"Enthusiasts upgrades" again, losing the narrative of what the place in the market of a CONSOLE is to begin with isn't a good strategy. They're too big for their britches, and see juicy whale milk to harvest, so they're harvesting it. While I get they want to do that as a business, it does not excuse them from being called out on it.

"Reduction in load times", you do realize PS4's equipped with SSDs aren't even that much slower than PS5's right? Yeah, reduced load times is fantastic, but did that need a new generation to achieve? Nope.

But I do agree, their reasoning for the launch absolutely revolved around MS, and specifically the X1X which was making PS4 look dated and they had to prematurely leapfrog it to prevent MS getting a footing, and consquently MS released way too early to prevent the same.

Though the consumer paying the price both for the monopoly, and for the rare competition is what's eating console alive, while it keeps forgetting its place and trying to compete with PC, while Nintendo just keeps on keeping on and seems to have taken the majority of the console market in the process, despite, my dislike for their own pricing abuse. Nobody should ever make Nintendo look good, but Sony keep trying.

@NEStalgia These are complex topics and the replies are getting longer and longer. I appreciate it though. Heres my rebutall if you will.

You're right about Valve being a privately owned company. Sony and Xbox arent, but yeah, not gonna be able to change anything there. Sony can not go back to being a private company.

Sony started the subsidized model because creating a console that was profitable and still cheap was getting harder to do. Saying Nintendo and Sega did it means nothing. It just means it was possible at that time with those certain economic conditions, things changed after that. They started selling consoles with a loss, almost every console manufacturer did.

Also, didnt Xbox start asking people to pay for online with Xbox Live? It certainly wasnt Playstation

Regarding Valve, they have a whole other business model in that they can seemingly get enough profit from their 30% cut to run and maintain their online network. The PC market is just a far larger pool with many more paying costumers than the console arena. If they didnt get enough out of the cuts that theyre getting, they would have to ask for payment for online as well. Because again running and maintaining it isnt free, not even for Valve.

Also, im no expert, but arent servers on Steam usually run by developers themselves? Correct me if im wrong, but that would definitely take the financial strain off Valve, which could explain a lot of why they dont need to charge for online.

Also, PS plus basic is $80/year, around $7 a month. But it doesnt only include online gaming, it also gives 36 games a year, with other additional benefits like discounts on dlc and such. People think its only about online gaming

I dont know all the ins and outs but comparing it to Valve with a whole other business operation is very hard to do.

So to conclude, i dont think the 30% cut is so unreasonable. I dont think them wanting to sell the PS5 Pro with a profit margin instead of subsidizing it and selling it with a loss is so unreasonable, because its not a mass seller. That would be a wrong strategy that will lose them money. You only subsidize consoles that sell like a 100million in lifetime sales, cause then you can guarantee that you will have a large enough paying playerbase to offset the loss you made by selling a console at a loss. This is not the case for the PS5 Pro which will maybe only sell around 10-12 million

@LogicStrikesAgain Yeah this reply chain could get way too big to manage way too fast haha. I'll try to keep short points for a few specifics since we have some specifics here though!

Nintendo (and I don't believe Sega) ever sold hardware at a loss. The only time Nintendo did was WiiU which was a special case and a disaster. They just build hardware that doesn't cost a lot to make and keep console expectations well below PC, which Sony forgot howto do. Sony started the Gilette model precisely to undermine Nintendo and Sega. But then kept spending on competing with PC until they couldn't sustain it anymore. Overspending seems to be their hobby. And they want to make it ours, too.

Yep Sony didn't need paid online, then Xbox started that train and Sony hopped right aboard, then Nintendo.

Steam is running the cloud saves and the like. Game servers are going to vary between run by developer/publisher or peer 2 peer, however that's no different for PSN, most games don't have dedicated PSN servers, they're also run by the devs/publishers or are peer 2 peer. Essentially we're paying Sony for a matchmaking server and telephone service we probably already use Discord for. Really we're paying Sony for the subsidy on hardware while also excusing them for making profits on hardware.

Plus may give discounts on games, but PC stores....just have lower prices to begin with and frequent deeper sales without paying for membership to sales. Epic gives games for free without paying for a subscription. So does Amazon. A gimmick to get market? Of course. But it goes to show you can offer those as part of doing business without subscriptions. Heck, Sony's a stakeholder in Epic.

I think the gray area we get into is mid gen consoles in general. This idea of taking CONSOLES, and splitting the experience to not be a uniform experience, entering into the "pay more get more" mindset, steps outside the whole role in the market of consoles to begin with and makes it something else. That's where we start getting into comparisons with other platforms to begin with. I still think dividing the market just to get whale milk off a small niche is more destructive than beneficial to the platfrom, and I do think Xbox, despite their many many many disastrous and self destructive mistakes, did make one right choice in avoiding the whole mid gen problem this time.

I dont think Sony forgot how to make cheap consoles. They just dont target the same market as Nintendo does. Sony wants to give you triple AAA gaming with reasonably high specs but with the ease of use of a console. Nintendo caters to a different demographic which doesnt really care for high end graphics. Thats why they created the Pro, which can give you reasonably high settings for a console price, meaning a price that u cant get on PC if you build it yourself.

Im just gonna go with what u said about the servers things, cause im not too knowledgeable on that subject. All i can say is, Valve probably makes enough money with the 30% cut, that they get to run and maintain it, thats all. If they didnt they would have to find other ways to pay for it as well.

Also, Sony makes cheap consoles as well. The PS5 digital released for $399 if im not mistaken. In contrast to the series S, since you mentioned it, which cost $299 at release. Look at the difference in price and the difference in specs and be honest. Does Playstation sell cheap consoles? Yes, just not the Pro, because its not subsidized as explained earlier

People do realize that it's not just the price that has people feeling some type of way about this, right? The fact that half of new games are still being released on PS4 sends a pretty strong message, to me, that an upgrade is NOT NECESSARY. Which essentially renders the PS5 Pro as what, an idiot test? I don't care how inexpensive the machine would be, it's mere existence is what I find insulting.

I love when millionaires think they have an idea of what is considered reasonable when it comes to cost

@tangyzesty I dont get what ure saying. The PS5 Pro is meant to play those games better. The upgrade isnt necessary, its for people who want to play with better settings and visuals. Like all PC games can be played on a RTX2070, but you can also play it on a RTX4070. Is it necessary? No ofcourse not, itll just give u better visuals and fps. None of it is necessary, its just an extra option.
Also, you do realize there are like 4 more years of games coming out before next gen hits. Maybe its also meant for those games?

I mean, he's not wrong, whatever the price is worth it or not is a different matter, but you can't built a pc with the same specs as ps5 pro with $700. Heck even the video card will cost that much, not including motherboard, ram, 2tb nvme ssd, good power supply, xbox/ps gamepad, etc.

@LogicStrikesAgain I completely agree with all your comments. Unfortunately, most people in here are being emotional and not logical.

@nessisonett The growth was in equal too the inflation in the Netherlands.