Thanks to a bizarre and unlikely confluence of events including an ongoing trade war with China, you can currently get a PlayStation 5 Pro for less than the most expensive Xbox Series X. That deal isn’t likely to last long but it speaks to what a mess video game pricing has been this console generation.
We’re nearly four years out from the launches of the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S and it’s never been a more confusing time to try and buy a console. Normally $700, the PS5 Pro is currently $50 off during Sony’s Days of Play sale while the comparable Xbox Series X Galaxy Edition, which launched at $600, is currently $730 to buy new. Both have the same 2TB SSD storage but the PS5 Pro can run updated games at 60fps with 4K upscaling while the Xbox Series X can’t.
The discrepancy comes after Microsoft decided to raise the prices of its gaming hardware across the board in the U.S. due to recent tariffs, including the previously very affordable Xbox Series S which is now $380, just $20 less than an all-digital PS5 bundle that comes with Astro Bot. Industry analysts have been waiting for Sony to follow suit even as the tariff situation continues to shift every other week.
But so far the company has held its ground. It told investors earlier this month that it had a few months of runway thanks to PS5 inventory that had already been shipped into the U.S. It looks like it’s going to at least get through the Days of Play sale that ends on June 11 before making any larger changes to its PS5 pricing policy.
While competition from Xbox continues to dwindle as Microsoft first-party exclusives go multiplatform, the Switch 2 could steal some of the PS5’s thunder this year. With no Grand Theft Auto 6 coming in 2025 anymore, more focus will be on Mario Kart World and whatever else Nintendo has lined up for the fall, especially if Trump’s trade war with China continues and the price of a PS5 or PS5 Pro goes up by $100 or more.
In the meantime, anyone thinking of picking up a PS5 Pro probably won’t find a better opportunity, especially as big games continue to push the existing console hardware past its limits the deeper we go into this generation. A PS6 is already rumored to be in the works for as early as late 2027.
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