Here are my thoughts on the PS5 Pro...
The PS5 launched in 2020 at a price of $399.99 USD for the digital version and $499.99 USD for the disc drive version. It has an eight-core Zen 2 CPU, an RDNA2 GPU, and a 1TB NVMe drive. The CPU is a Ryzen 3700X and the GPU has performance equal to that of the goat Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti. Either version of the console came with a vertical stand as well as one controller. The PS5 Pro is changing things up. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
The PS5 Pro is going to launch at $699.99 USD as a digital console. It will still have the same CPU, as the main upgrade is the GPU. From what has been seen, it's estimated to perform like that of the Radeon 7700 XT. It will also have a 2TB NVMe drive this time. No disc drive version will be available. Yeah, that means you have to buy the disc drive separate, and it's actually unavailable right now (9/18/2024). Hey, at least the disc drive is only $79.99. Cheaper than $100.00! Well actually, you'd also have to buy the vertical stand separately if you didn't want to lay the console flat. The price for that is $29.99. So overall, getting the disc "version" this time around is more expensive than the original PS5. With this refresh, they are aiming for 60FPS with visual quality equal to that of the "Fidelity Mode" from the PS5. So a performance/visual bump that will cost $810 all-in. Yeah, $800+ for a game console in 2024. That is uhhhhh, not a small amount of money... especially these days with how expensive living is grrrrr.
Now to help see if that is worth it, let's try comparing it to a PC. Yeah, the old Personal Computer. Now before I go into detail, I am assuming that you already have a TV that you would be using with the console. Went ahead and put together a quick AM5 desktop build via PCPartPicker. This is built on the modern Ryzen platform, skipping right over a last-gen build for a reason :3 We've got a Ryzen 7600, 32GB RAM, B650 mobo, modern case, 2TB drive, and a 750W ATX 3.0 PSU. What about the GPU though? Well, you could get the 1080 Ti used for around $170. Add in the DualSense Controller for $74.99 and yer total comes out to $1,007 for PS5 level performance. More accurately, PS5 graphics performance with CPU performance 32% faster (single-core) and 17% faster (multi-core). You can also do more than just play games on a PC. Such is the beauty <3 Wait! We forgot to calculate something else in this comparison. The Playstation Plus subscriptionnnn. This changes things??
The cheapest membership is the PlayStation Plus Essential plan. This plan is $79.99/year. So if you keep the console for 5 years, that's an extra $399.95. This takes the $810 price and raises it to $1,210. Let's take our PC build and see what we can tweak for that extra subscription cost that you aren't paying for. I see that you can buy the ASRock Phantom Gaming 7700 XT for $399.99. Now we have all new parts, nothing used. Our PC now matches the PS5 Pro in graphics, while soundly beating it in CPU. Actually, there is a good possibility that we actually beat it in the graphics as well. Why? Because the 3700X trying to feed the GPU data at 4K resolution is going to mean our CPU is now the limit for the FPS we can get. By having the Ryzen 7600 instead, the faster 7700 XT will be able to stretch its legs further. Instead of aiming for 4K60FPS, something like 4K90FPS would be more obtainable. Maybe even 4K120FPS in some games. Let you really take advantage of the TV you have, especially if you have a nicer TV that can display more than 60FPS.
The last thing to consider is upgradability. With the PS5 Pro, the only thing you can add is more storage. Once the console can't play the newer games you want as well (or they just outright aren't developed for the PS5 Pro), you have to get a new console. With a PC, it's different. You are starting out with a faster CPU, so the PC could maintain higher FPS for longer compared to the PS5 Pro. You can also simply swap in a more powerful CPU (with a BIOS update) and GPU, assuming you are on the Ryzen platform. No need to buy a whole new PC. This greatly reduces the cost of an upgrade. Remember that consoles nor PC's are perfect. They will always have their issues, shortcomings, etc. What you want to do (imho) is get the best value for yer $. This traditionally (especially at launch) as been consoles if all you want to do is game. If consoles keep increasing in price like this tho, it'll make more and more sense to simply get a PC instead.
I'd think this over, as almost $1,000 USD isn't what I would call the cheapest purchase to make for something that you probably want to keep for many years.