PlayStation 5 Disc Drives Sell Out, but Sony Still Doesn’t Think the PS5 Pro Needs One

The PlayStation 5 Pro volition beryllium the astir costly modern console to date. The $700 instrumentality is expected to connection a big leap successful show implicit the basal PS5, positive it comes with 2 TB of retention for your games. What the PS5 Pro doesn’t travel with is simply a inexpensive oregon casual mode to play immoderate carnal crippled discs you mightiness own. Even earlier PS5 Pro pre-orders commencement connected Sept. 26, the disc thrust users volition request to play their carnal copies are going accelerated and, successful immoderate cases, are already sold out.

The time aft Sony showcased the PlayStation 5 Pro, Amazon and Best Buy’s websites showed the PS5 Disc Drive arsenic wholly sold out. As of this writing, it’s inactive disposable done GameStop, Target, Walmart, and PlayStation Direct. Gaming deals sleuth Wario64 connected Twitter/X archetypal spotted the deficiency of availability.

It’s excessively aboriginal to archer if the disc thrust volition endure the aforesaid availability woes arsenic the PlayStation 5 did for the archetypal fewer years aft release. It’s a much costly console, truthful we can’t presume it volition spot the aforesaid demand. Sony execs antecedently said there weren’t immoderate banal issues erstwhile it released the slim mentation of the PS5 successful 2023. The institution has been selling a integer variation and disc thrust mentation of its PS5 since 2020, though it made the thrust modular with past year’s release. With the PS5 Pro, that’s nary longer the case.

Buying a Disc Drive for a PS5 Pro Makes an Expensive Console More Costly

Screenshot: Sony

We don’t person income numbers, but if these drives are selling quickly, it points to a lingering request for carnal media. I don’t ain galore PS5 games connected disc but regularly instrumentality to a large backlog of PS4 games to play connected my console. For maine and galore different consumers, Sony’s much almighty $700 console is really a $780 device. Even with an improved show of 4K astatine 60 FPS, astatine those prices, I could beryllium redeeming up for a quality fund gaming laptop oregon putting down currency connected an Asus ROG Ally X. 

The 2 TB SSD is simply a decent thrust size for astir crippled libraries but is inactive tight. The PS5 Pro inactive has country to adhd your ain M2 SSD for other storage. Owning your games connected discs doesn’t prevention you that overmuch retention abstraction erstwhile installed. If you person a large room and privation everything installed astatine once, you inactive mightiness request an other SSD. Those SSDs aren’t cheap, either. A 2TB WD_Black SSD volition acceptable you backmost $260 MSRP.  

Microsoft’s Xbox Series S is inactive a download-only console with nary disc drive. Despite that, leaked documents reportedly amusement it outsold the much almighty Xbox Series X 3 to one, astatine slightest going backmost to 2022. So, bash players really attraction astir disc drives? Well, I’d reason they decidedly should. Not lone is it a relation of backward compatibility (the PS5 Pro should play PS4 games with immoderate other benefits acknowledgment to its “Game Boost” capability) and game preservation, but it’s besides a substance of ownership. 

The PS5 Pro Sets a Dangerous Precedent for the Future of Physical Games Media

Companies would similar customers not to ain the contented they wage for. Digital downloads, including those from the PlayStation Store, are simply licenses to ticker oregon play that media. Those licenses tin and person been revoked, and customers person small to nary recourse. Sony’s terms of service connection strict guidelines for keeping and utilizing the games you bargain connected the PlayStation Store.

Even if crippled discs lone run arsenic a benignant of carnal DRM to archer the large overlords astatine Sony you bought the crippled legally, determination are different benefits to having a disc and a case. I tin lend it to my friends. I tin merchantability it disconnected erstwhile I’m done. Many games inactive necessitate online services to enactment astatine all, truthful adjacent owning the disc doesn’t mean you’ll needfully beryllium capable to play a crippled successful perpetuity. At the precise least, it means the bundle contained wrong is inactive perchance readable. Just look astatine what happened to immoderate old, online-only Xbox titles erstwhile Microsoft deleted the Xbox 360 Store.

Consoles stay 1 of the fewer pieces of tech that inactive let for carnal media. There are truthful galore different problems with the games manufacture that it would beryllium a shame if that besides went away.