Sony says PS5 Pro will deliver “exceptional value” to the “most dedicated” gamers

The announcement of the PS5 Pro and its price tag sparked controversy, with some condemning it while others defended it. Now PlayStation designer Toshi Aoki has thrown his hat into the ring of PS5 Pro defenders, claiming the console is for the “most dedicated” gamers.

In an IGN interview, Aoki defended the price and pointed out that the real target group was dedicated gamers. That doesn't mean people who casually fire up their PS5 to play a game or two.

“Well, the technologies that I just mentioned that we are using to bring new experiences to players, and not just the technological differences, but also the SSD, the Wi-Fi 7 and the new technologies that surround the gameplay . So it's more of a total package that offers that exceptional value to players… the most dedicated players that we're targeting.”

It's worth noting that later in the interview there was talk about why the PS5 Pro doesn't have a disc drive, which was also heavily criticized as it means those who have discs will have to buy them another Accessories just to play games they physically own. In particular, Aoki points out that this is about “giving players choice.”

For fear of personal opinion creeping in, we don't think it's controversial to say this isn't right, and it's more likely that Sony just doesn't want to mess with putting a drive in a device costing at least $700 -dollars to put. The drive costs another $79.99 and if you want to stand your PS5 Pro vertically you'll need the stand for $29.99.

We're not sure if this actually represents “exceptional value,” but this is a senior PlayStation employee defending PlayStation hardware. So what do you expect?

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