PS5 Pro Debacle

[.hack]

So Sony finally revealed the PS5 Pro, only issues are;
-shock pricing of 700$
-inconsistent unfair pricing with europe, japan and uk all paying significantly more working out to more like 800-900$ after conversion
-price doesn't include disc tray (extra 70/80ish I think) or even a stand (can't remember how much they are but also a separate stand alone purchase)
-no new big release exclusives shown that will make use of the pro
-diminishing returns on the hardware improvements

this also comes off the back of an unannounced yet official price hike for dualsense controllers too!

Majority of reactions online are unsurprisingly highly negative, from all territories and including from high profile voices in the industry and content creators.

So what are you thoughts on this situation?

My thoughts;

Spoiler:

Personally the no disc drive was enough to check me out entirely, not interested in supporting a move to an all digital future. Ofc the price stuff is a joke too, feels a bit like Sony running unchecked. Almost feel like some kind of boycott is in order, but idunno if that would actually be effective or worth doing at all, I reckon the pro will be a sales flop anyway. I do think as consumers we shouldn't support the pro or dualsense price hike, let them watch the sales drop off a cliff and I'm sure they will quickly backtrack a lot of this. As someone who lived through the retail situation of the OG PS5 in the U.K., this just also seems like the most insane self sabotage marketing I've ever seen. Stores couldn't keep the ps5 in stock for years after release, now some will likely be expecting something at least close to that and be sorely disappointed with the pro. I foresee a lot of overstock of these in stores. Maybe that's what is needed to finally get the price cuts. It just seems like such a fumble, surely off the back of the PS5's success if they hadn't absolutely butchered this release the sales would've been strong. Maybe I'm wrong and it will sell well anyway with the general pop? Idunno tho, don't think anyone besides a small group of hardcores will buy this, no one I know is getting it or even interested after this...and I know physical media is important for general consumers and families too so the no disc drive is gonna be a hard sell there too. Maybe they'll make some retail bundles with the separate disc drive to drive sales to try to salvage that market.
Hilarious that they came off the back of some great PR thanks to Team Asobi with Astro Bot only to decimate a lot of that goodwill with this. "Oh you guys love Playstation? Let us remind you why we suck actually".

 

[The Mega Champion]

I wasn't going to get the mid-gen refresh anyway because most of the time I don't. I'm satisfied with my current PS5 and it works to my satisfaction and what I need it to do anyway.

Nobody is disputing that the price is utterly ridiculous. Nobody is disputing that, because of this, this mid-gen refresh will likely flop. But to suggest that this is more 'proof' that the gaming industry is collapsing and games won't be made ever again and the sky is falling is utterly ridiculous, BS, and asinine. But what the **** do I know right?

 

[.hack]

I wasn't going to get the mid-gen refresh anyway because most of the time I don't. I'm satisfied with my current PS5 and it works to my satisfaction and what I need it to do anyway.

Nobody is disputing that the price is utterly ridiculous. Nobody is disputing that, because of this, this mid-gen refresh will likely flop. But to suggest that this is more 'proof' that the gaming industry is collapsing and games won't be made ever again and the sky is falling is utterly ridiculous, BS, and asinine. But what the **** do I know right?

yeah fair point, people are happy with their PS5s and the Mid Gen refresh was already a hard sell.

I didn't really say the last part tho? lol. Are you referring to sentiment you've seen elsewhere online somewhere?

I just think it makes Sony look bad, and hurts sales that could've been strong, not that it's the end of the world.

 

[Cherrim]

I just bought a PS5 finally a couple months ago so it's kind of nice that they priced the Pro so insanely that I have no regrets at all about getting one right before the refresh! It'd be about $1200 here in Canada to get a Pro with a disc drive (why else would I want a console if not to buy physical media to play?) and that's just... I could upgrade my gaming PC to something pretty powerful at that price point with room to upgrade for years. Why in the world would I ever pick a PS5 at that point?

 

[gimmepie]

Nobody is disputing that the price is utterly ridiculous. Nobody is disputing that, because of this, this mid-gen refresh will likely flop. But to suggest that this is more 'proof' that the gaming industry is collapsing and games won't be made ever again and the sky is falling is utterly ridiculous, BS, and asinine. But what the **** do I know right?

Are people saying this? I mean, the gaming (console) bubble is going to have to pop eventually with prices for consoles and big name games rapidly growing to outpace most peoples' means, but you'd have to be nuts to think that the industry is going anywhere. I'm pretty sure video games are the most profitable entertainment industry in the world. If anything, people are just going to gravitate more and more towards PC gaming though. The initial gateway to entry is lower and even if you do invest in a more expensive and more powerful PC (or gaming laptop tbh, there's some pretty good ones out there now), it's an investment that pays off more in the long term since you can upgrade individual components, use it easily for other things and access a wider arrange of games - many of which are cheaper.

Still, I don't know who is making decisions for Sony right now but I'm pretty sure the only thing keeping them going reliably is the fact that their exclusives are typically better than Microsoft's (at least in my opinion). But leaning so heavily on that exclusivity is going to cost them when Microsoft can easily lean into cross-platform stuff and even developers like Square Enix are making more and more stuff playable on multiple platforms - albeit with a delay.

I definitely don't see a console that is at minimum $700 US without a slot for physical games and minimal improvements to the hardware doing particularly well in the middle of the current generation. So the Pro's sales will likely be something a flop. The question is more, will Sony start learning from their mistakes or double down? The gaming industry will be fine in the long run. The question is more about if Sony wants to continue to be one of the biggest players through the next 5-10 years.

Edit: As an aside, I haven't bought a Sony console since the PS3 and have little intention of doing so again any time soon. The ridiculous price barrier is a big part of that. It's just not worth the money when I'm getting more out of my desktop and Switch.

 

[The Mega Champion]

I didn't really say the last part tho? lol. Are you referring to sentiment you've seen elsewhere online somewhere?

Pretty much this. I wasn't specifically talking about this forum in particular it was a shot at BS I've seen generally and other places.

I like the console experience and gaming PCs are too damn expensive so I will always choose a console

 

[PoryKid575]

I don't own a PS5, so maybe I'm mistaken, but I was under the impression that hardly any games have pushed even the default PS5 to its limits; nor are there any games that we know to be in development that would require substantially beefier hardware to run. I can't see it being anything other then a flop, at least the PS3 could be justified as a relatively good value if you wanted a Blu-Ray player and a gaming console; but what reason is there to drop $700 on a marginally faster PS5 when you could get a very solid gaming PC that can also be used for productivity and has access to vastly more games for the same price?

 

[Venia Silente]

Majority of reactions online are unsurprisingly highly negative, from all territories and including from high profile voices in the industry and content creators.

Oh I can assure you, many of those naysayers who are complaining, they're still gonna kneel and bend down and bootlick - or even lick higher up if you get what I mean. Wait four or five months more and you'll see their videos on how the PS5 is sooooo marvelous and accessible and why don't you have one? And of course, they'll buy the new Extra Pro Dualsenses Special Edition too, with a price markup gouge of +130%, just for the extra likes and suscribes.

Enough people will buy that the console will still be profitable, and Sony will be justified in doubling down because hahahaha big number go up brrrrrrr and next we'll have them trying to go for a price gouge in the order of the $1300 for the PS6. Yearly rent ofc, you won't get to *buy* the cnosole. Oh and it will come without add-ons.

But so far, while watching the reactions to the PS5 has been fun, to me it's nothing new and nothing that's gonna change how people reach up to the offerings in the industry unless Nintendo somehow pulls a Wii with the Switch 2 - which we all know they Nintenwon't - or one big game provider makes a strong, provable provision commitment to the Steam Deck.

"Microsoft"? Who?

There's simply no reason to invest in a PS5 when on the same price tag I can get *two* desktop machines with specs slightly above average - and basically get untiered access to the entire library of videogames by humanity starting before the Spectrum ZS and up to the PS3 (or even the PS4, haven't caught up with the technological advances). As it stands, there is and there won't be any game on the PS5 that is so revolutionary, so genre-busting, that I can't afford to wait five years to play it on a normal PC or even to play it vicariously when the producers are forced to make a port to a more sensible and sellable console.

But sure, in the meantime? Oh am I laughing.

 

[.hack]

I guess these conversations do kind of naturally spiral into this doom and gloom stuff about the industry as a whole. I don't personally think things are that dire lol. The PS5 pro will flop for sure. But overall the PS5 and Switch are massive successes, I guess nothing is certain with Nintendo but I think the Switch 2 will do pretty well too.

I agree with the points in this thread that PC gaming will probably grab whatever ground in the industry that console gaming yields.

I feel like stuff like the Steamdeck and other PC handhelds have done wonders for making it more accessible and affordable.

I do feel like all three of Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony can't get complacent and will likely have to work very hard to keep their status in the industry, MS seems checked out now but hopefully they do get back in the game eventually. That's why the PS5 Pro likely flopping feels like an easily avoidable misstep. Maybe Sony is smugly and mistakenly confident thinking they can do whatever and get away with it. But it's definitely a possibility Sony lose a lot of market share in the future, and the company will undoubtedly sorely miss it, you would think they would see this possibility tho and be doing everything in their power to make it not the case.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see some back tracking and price cuts on Sony's side, once the reality of what they've done sets in.

 

[Incineroar]

I just bought a PS5 finally a couple months ago so it's kind of nice that they priced the Pro so insanely that I have no regrets at all about getting one right before the refresh! It'd be about $1200 here in Canada to get a Pro with a disc drive (why else would I want a console if not to buy physical media to play?) and that's just... I could upgrade my gaming PC to something pretty powerful at that price point with room to upgrade for years. Why in the world would I ever pick a PS5 at that point?

Yeahhhhh, when I ran the numbers, having to add the disc drive and stand made it so incredibly over the top expensive that it's just really not worth the investment. My regular PS5 works fine for me, so I'll live with it. Sony is slowly starting to kinda lose touch with their customer base in terms of making affordable products, and while I don't think it's a sign of the game industry at large (Mostly because Nintendo doesn't price this high) I think it's something specifically about Sony that they seem to want to put the most high end stuff in their systems and it really jacks up the price - look at the PSVR2 being $800 here in Canada just for the headset alone. I only have one because I managed to get a very lucrative 50% discount on it, otherwise I probably wouldn't have bought it.

I do think though that what this is a sign of is that consumers in the video game community are starting to become more price conscious. It's getting to the point with Sony that you're literally better off just building a cheap PC or buying a cheap gaming prebuilt instead of a game console, and you can do a whole lot more. The only thing you really miss out on is Sony's exclusives, but depending on the software developer they may make it for last-gen for a while. People are starting to get to the point that buying a game is pretty much the cost of a week's worth of groceries, and a game console, at least in this case, is as much as a rent payment. When I was younger, a game console was a couple hundred or a few hundred dollars, and new releases were anywhere from $40 to $50, but it's effectively doubled now. Game companies need to either figure out how to dial in these expenses or just slow down on adopting cutting-edge technology so that it can become a bit more affordable to the masses so you don't have to release a game system with a 4-digit price tag to match.