Was making the PS5 Pro so expensive a mistake? It’s probably still too early to tell, but the pace of sales have apparently fallen behind the PS4 Pro’s

The PS5 Pro was seemingly off to a good start, but recent sales data has apparently put its pace behind the PS4 Pro around the same time after launch.

I originally got my PS5 about two years after everybody else, primarily because, well, I write about games for a living so figured I should catch up, and despite thinking the platform didn’t have many exclusives to help make it worth it, I figured they’d come down the line. That didn’t really happen, as more and more developers are moving towards multiplatform releases, including Xbox, which might even bring titles like Halo to rival platforms. Then, last September, Sony announced the PS5 Pro, a $700 console that doesn’t come with a disc drive, and, oh yeah, you’ll have to pay even more if you want one. It was a ridiculous thing to witness, but I knew this was for a select group of people that didn’t include me (and not just because I couldn’t afford something like that).

I still couldn’t help but wonder how well it would do, and in November, the launch month for the upgraded piece of hardware, Sony even said that the price point didn’t seem to have a negative impact on sales. That might still technically be true for all we know, but over on BlueSky games industry analyst Mat Piscatella from Circana shared that as it stands, the “PS5 Pro has fallen behind PS4 Pro’s pace” in terms of sales three months in. To be clear, I don’t think that the price is necessarily the reason behind that slowing pace, but I do think the general state of things might be.

PS5 Pro has fallen behind PS4 Pro’s pace.

Digital SKUs accounted for 49% of PS5 HW units in Jan and 88% of XBS units.

— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) February 21, 2025 at 2:29 PM

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Prices are up across all industries compared to a few years ago, people just have less money to spend, particularly on a console where big tentpole games keep getting cancelled, and where the platform creator hosts showcases with next to no first-party exclusives (all of which will come to PC, albeit a shabby state, eventually anyway).

It’s always possible the PS5 Pro could pick up pace again further down the line, but Piscatella also noted that hardware sales are down across the board, with PS5 spending down 38%, Xbox by 50%, and Switch by 53%. That last one is probably because of the imminent Switch 2, but we’re still yet to learn about a price for that one.

Honestly, let’s just hope pointless mid-gen hardware upgrades die with this generation, especially when some of the tech you use is called PSSR, for heaven’s sake.