Sony’s new PlayStation 5 Pro looks very powerful. But at $700 — and another $80 if you want to buy the disc drive accessory since the console itself doesn’t have one — many gamers are left wondering exactly how it strongly needs to justify the cost.
In this episode of The Vergecast, we’re trying to figure out why the PS5 Pro has the specs and price tag it does and what this new console can tell us about the overall state of the gaming business. At the same time as Sony’s announcement, Microsoft said it was laying off another 650 Xbox employees — these are two companies with different ideas about the same business, and it’s not always obvious who’s right.
After we wrap up our PS5 Pro chat, we talk about the week’s other gadget news. We also talk a bit about the reaction to Apple’s event on Monday, after briefly forgetting it happened this week. We discuss Huawei’s Mate XT, the triple-folding smartphone that makes people happy in all the ways that the iPhone 16 didn’t. We’re excited about Android’s multi-window future. And we consider two concurrent Google stories: the excellent Pixel Watch 3 and the company’s potentially debilitating ad tech trial. Google wins. Google is at risk. Google, as always, continues to Google.
If you want to know more about everything we cover in this episode, here are some links to get you started, starting with the PS5 Pro:
And in other gadget news:
And with the lightning round:
