$500 Over List for a PS5 Pro Is Not a Shop Being Greedy. It Is the Hobby Pricing People Out

GameStop is asking around $500 over list for a PS5 Pro, and the explanation offered is a memory shortage that reporting says could last into 2027.

I would not pay it. I would wait, or buy a different console, or put the money into the PC. That is the easy part of the answer. The harder part is what this kind of price does over time.

Gaming is getting expensive in a way that is not only about one console. Hardware goes up, games went to seventy dollars and then to editions above that, and now a shortage adds a markup on top of a machine that already cost $699 at launch. Each step is defensible on its own. Together they move the entrance fee out of reach of the people who used to be the next generation of players.

Those people do not stop playing. They play on the phone, or they play smaller games with modest requirements on a console or a PC that is already a few years old. That is not a failure of taste, it is arithmetic, and it explains a shift that gets written about as if it were a mystery of youth culture.

So the markup is a symptom rather than a scandal. A shop charging what people will pay is the least interesting part. The interesting part is who quietly leaves when the price of entry goes up.

So, do I buy it? No. Wait for the shortage to pass, buy the previous machine, or spend it on a PC that will last longer. Nothing about this console gets better by paying $500 extra for it today.