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Consoles and handhelds · Sony PlayStation

Sony PlayStation PS5 Pro

7owners with an opinion
60%of verdicts positive
3/2positive/negative since 2024
0happy after 3+ years

Praised for performance and reliability.

What owners wrote

Doesn’t like it
This is disappointing. I bought a PS5 Pro mostly for this game. I didn’t want to make the trade off between graphics and frame rate, which seemed to be what the base PS5 often makes people do (from what I read). I guess we can hope for a future update once they figure out how to optimize more.
Neutral
41yo, lifelong casual gamer who has 100s of hours on many games and also goes years without playing any but also frequently jump in here and there. I recently bought a PS5 Pro in anticipation of GTA6. I’m pretty shocked at how boring and lifeless big modern AAA games are. I feel like I’m basically playing a cinematic sequence in a Marvel-slop movie. “ A game idea should be at least 90% mechanics and less than 10% story. Any more than 10% story is a red flag.” -Tynan Sylvester Everything is just an Unreal engine demo now?
Likes it
The PS5 is great. We have a PS5 and PS5 Pro, both with disk drives (internal or external). But I really hate this policy. My brother comes over regularly to watch my pets, and he can simply bring a couple of his PS5 games over and play them rather than rebuying them and digitally downloading them. This breaks the in-person social aspect of gaming and game sharing that we've become accustomed to for decades.
Likes it
My gaming PC motherboard recently sh*t the bed. It was over 10 years old and I’ve beaten that thing up quite a bit. It’s Zen 1, so new MOBO basically means like 70% new PC. Before the price was announced I figured I’d look into a Steam Machine because I also want a well-supported Linux box for coding. I already have a PS5 Pro - which turned out to actually be a decent investment because the price has been increased multiple times since I bought it. When I saw the price of the Steam Machine I just *sigh*’d. Reviews are saying the Steam Machine barely stacks up against a base PS5. Excuse me, WHAT!? Was considering just getting a MacBook Neo to tide me over until I can build a proper PC and they just jacked up the prices. I’ll probably still end up getting one but I just gotta wait a bit longer. I’m currently surviving on a 2012 iMac my mother in law asked me to get the files off of for her and she gave me the computer itself. Installed Ubuntu on it and it’s…fine…but it doesn’t even have an SSD so it can be rough at times. It’s ridiculous. I’m a software engineer, and I can’t even afford mid-level technology anymore (not American so I don’t have the ridiculous salary like some). Thankfully my M1 Max Mac Studio from a few years ago is still going strong and my employer pays for that anyway. It’s also for work only. Though I suspect not gonna happy when either 1) I need an upgrade for local LLM developement for the AI projects coming down the pipe or 2) he sees the AP…
Likes it
I can't speak for the other poster, but I actually recently "abandoned" PC gaming. For me, it wasn't a deliberate decision but more of a change in behavior that occurred over time. I suspect the key event was picking up a PS5 Pro. For me, it's the first console that's felt powerful enough to scratch a similar itch as PC gaming -- except I could just plug it into our Atmos-equipped "home theater" set up and have it not only work flawlessly but be easily accessible to everyone, not just me. Since picking it up, between the PS5 Pro and handheld gaming devices, I just have not played a game on my gaming PC a single time and am currently planning on retiring it as a result. There may be a connection here with age and the type of games I play too. I'm in my mid-30s now and am not interested in competitive twitch shooters like Call of Duty. In many cases, the games I've been interested in have actually been PS5 exclusives or were a mostly equivalent experience on PS5 Pro vs. PC or were actually arguably better on PS5 Pro (e.g., Jedi Survivor). In some cases, like with Doom: The Dark Ages, I've been surprised at how much I enjoyed something I previously would've only considered playing on PC -- the PS5 Pro version still manages to offer both 60 FPS and ray tracing. In other cases, like Diablo IV, I started playing on PC but gradually over time my playtime naturally transitioned almost entirely to PS5 Pro. The last time I played Diablo IV on my PC, which has a 4090, I was shocked at…
Likes itHasn’t owned it
I know the price for PC parts is terrible these days, but $1049 for a 6-core 16GB RAM, with a 512GB SSD, and no controller, is a terrible value. For reference, the PS5 Pro has more than twice the number GPU CUs, an 8-core CPU, a 2TB SSD, a controller, and costs $899.
Likes itHasn’t owned it
PS5 pro - just works, decent 4K gaming, plays PS5 games and timed exclusives, remote play support, compatible with my PSN library / flash drive full of PS4 games. Reasonably quiet (though not as whisper quiet as original PS5.) Steam Machine - pre-configured and easier than regular PC, decent 1440p gaming, plays nearly any PC game, remote play support, compatible with my Steam and GoG libraries. Both sound good actually.
Doesn’t like itHasn’t owned it
> Steam Machines can become an existencial crisis for PlayStation and Xbox. Xbox, as a console, already is in an existential crisis. I think people have weird expectations about what the Steam Machine will cost. From what Valve has said so far (cheaper than if you build it yourself from parts), it will still cost significantly more than a PS5, and probably also more than a PS5 Pro, while having less performance than both. You will not beat the PS5 in terms of performance per dollar. Yes, games are more expensive on PS5, but most people don't work that way but just want to know whether they'll be able to play GTA6 on day one.
Doesn’t like itHasn’t owned it
The Article forgot to mention that Counter Strike started as a Half Life Mod. And I remember friends playing UT mods more than the base game. I’m not very happy with gaming in 2025. I’m more a console gamer because the whole custom configuration to get the best FPS/visuals is distracting me from playing. I mean I’m the problem there. So I liked to stick to consoles with their easy setup. But with the PS4 Pro that changed. Now I had to choose again: Performance vs Visuals. My answer was always: I want both! I went back to a PC in 2020 and hated it. I spend an arm and leg for the parts and never had the feeling I got much out of the machine (that’s what you get if you try to build a workstation/gaming rig hybrid) So it’s mostly my fault why PC gaming sucks for me. But there is one huge reason why I went this route: Cost. I refuse to pay north of $3000 for a high end gaming rig to play games on it. Just that. I mean what else would a 3800/4800 do in my PC. And consoles? Well they’re heading the same way. I payed the 500 for the PS5 and also XBox Series X. Both together were cheaper as a GPU at the time. But the PS5 Pro feels like a ripoff. And I understand that I could built a more cost effective mid range PC that smokes these newer consoles. But my joy in gaming is not building the hardware or checking latest test on gamers nexus etc. I want to play games.
Doesn’t like itHasn’t owned it
I'm all for user choice, but at the same time, the reason I opt for a console is to not think about that kind of thing. I expect the developers made the game with the hardware in mind and optimized it to run well with the graphics provided. The idea of a graphics vs performance mode feels like they needed to push the PS5 too hard to make the graphics good enough to justify a new console, but realistically, the hardware can't handle it. The sales pitch of the PS5 Pro is that the choice no longer has to be made, which is how it should always be with a console, imo. If people want to tweak and tune to make their personal tradeoffs between graphics and speed, that always seemed like what the PC was for. I was looking at getting a PS5 slim, but heart the Pro rumors, so I waited. After seeing the graphics vs performance toggle, I don't want the slim, but looking at the comparisons, I don't see enough of a difference in graphics where I want to pay more for the Pro... so I think I'm likely going to skip it all together, at least for now. Things might change when GTA6 comes out. That could make the choice more clear.
Doesn’t like itHasn’t owned it
Yea and if Sony isn't targeting the super budget conscious then who does this target? I don't get it. $700 is too much to buy this console as a gift (say, for a kid), and if you're a passionate gamer then I think the argument that you might start looking at alternatives in the PC space is pretty compelling. For me, I think the PS5 has a real fit in my house especially as my kids play it, and so does my PC which I haven't upgraded in years. I see no reason to buy the PS5 pro given it's in that no mans land price-wise.
Likes itHasn’t owned it
What I've noticed, and Sony confirmed in their video with Mark Cerny, is that everyone (75%) of people are playing on performance mode, because in Fidelity mode, none of the games are capable of holding 60fps. The Pro supposedly provides Fidelity mode graphics (or near to) at 60fps. It's really noticeable too, you either lose the nice visual definition with low dynamic scaling resolutions, and RT, by playing in Performance, or you get horrible frame rates and lots of input lag in Fidelity, but you get RT and nicer visuals. If I gamed a lot (I don't much at since I have young kids, due to time constraints), and the price was a bit lower, I'd totally get one, but it's not for me, right now. So I do understand who it's for; put that price tag stings a little. EDIT: One big annoyance is that if you have a day-1 PS5 like I do, you likely wouldn't have bought the slim version, and if you want a disc drive, you'll have to buy that separate; There's not many people likely to have bought a slim with a drive to have it to swap onto the Pro, in my mind.
Likes itHasn’t owned it
Why are gamers like this? People dinged the console for performance issues when the lushest 4k graphics options were selected, so Sony responded with a model that delivers lush graphics and smooth gameplay at high frame rates. I've never even seen a PS5 and I know this from overhearing gamers talk about it. istm Sony's bigger problem is a lack of AAA games that make the console a must-have rather than a fun option, but since it's essentially a PC in a custom box idk how they square that circle. Juicing the hardware mid-cycle may not be the most exciting option but it's hardly unprecedented.
Doesn’t like itHasn’t owned it
It is interesting but not surprising that it’s disc-optional with no pre-installed disc drive option available. Otherwise, in terms of specs and price, I am somewhat amazed that the console market is clinging on to life at this point. The PS5/Series generation pushed me to PC and I’m really not understanding the appeal of the consoles anymore beyond the convenience of not needing to do assembly. The consoles are just giving you hardware that PCs already had years ago and isn’t even really beating it on price all that well. This thing is $700 and you’ll end up with a better system if you build a new PC with a $500 graphics card at about $1000 total build cost. And then you have way more flexibility overall and a much larger game library.