The PS5 Pro is sure to be on the slightly optimistic Christmas lists of all sorts of people, young and old, this year. The unavoidably high price that Sony has slapped on the most powerful console it’s ever made means that someone else buying it for you would indeed make life a lot easier.

Of course, that price also means that only the most generous (and financially liquid) of gifters could consider giving one away, so most people will instead be trying to work out whether they can justify a purchase on their own. As someone who sold his PS5 and spent a few hundred pounds to get one already, I’ve got thoughts you might find illuminating.

It’s slimmer than I thought it would be

This is something that you could well already know, given how many direct comparisons are out there, but when I unboxed the PS5 Pro and then sat it next to my launch PS5 ready for a (slow) data transfer, its size was striking. Unlike the PS4 Pro, this time around the Pro console is a good chunk smaller and lighter.

That assertion is complicated by the different versions of the base PS5 on the market. The newer slim models are obviously the smallest and lightest available, and Sony also managed to make the original PS5 a lot lighter with an internal revision some time after it launched. I had the original model, though, which is a hefty unit, and the PS5 Pro surprised me by being way easier to pick up and move around.

2025 could be the year of the PS5 Pro…

I’ve said before that I think a PS5 Pro purchase will really start to feel justifiable next year, when a string of big releases let it actually flex its muscles. Straight away, in January, I’m confident that games like Monster Hunter: Wilds and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II will launch with slightly sketchy performance on the base PS5, and much more stability on the PS5 Pro.

Later in the year, Ghost of Yotei should absolutely sing on the latest hardware, and even something like Assassin’s Creed: Shadows should benefit from the increased graphical headroom. The behemoth that is Grand Theft Auto VI looms later in the year, too. These will hopefully help to build a way bigger catalogue of games that really noticeably get boosted by the PS5 Pro.

…but 2024’s games don’t feel upgraded by much

The other side of that coin, one that I can readily admit, is that since the PS5 Pro arrived I haven’t necessarily had that “wow” moment of noticing an improvement. I played all of Dragon Age: Veilguard on it, and I’m willing to believe it would have dropped more frames on the standard PS5, but without tediously swapping back and forth I simply can’t say I felt a boost.

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The games I play most regularly similarly don’t feel all that different – it’s not clear to me if Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has actually had a meaningful PS5 Pro patch, and Rocket League hasn’t changed graphically in years, to my chagrin.

One welcome counterpoint to that has been The Finals, which I’ve been dipping back into. It’s a beautiful game with heavy destruction to make your console chug, and I think it does feel smoother and a little more responsive than I remember it being on the launch PS5, which is nice.

The disc drive is an expensive must-buy

Part of what makes the PS5 Pro’s price even more shocking is its all-digital construction, which makes the PlayStation 5 Disc Drive a necessary purchase if you have any games on disc that you’d like to play. I do indeed, and I still think it’s cheeky from PlayStation.

The disc drive feels expensively priced in its own right, especially outside the US. While the latest figures make it clear that digital game sales now truly dwarf physical ones, it’s still disappointing to see the pricing bar raised like this.

At least there are some deals, though

Now, to be clear – I’m not saying that the disc drive will get deals. There’s been no sign of that sadly, and stock has been very hard to come by.

The PS5 Pro itself, though, has already been the subject of some modest reductions. Black Friday saw single-digit percentages come off its price, and there’s every reason to hope that this year’s Boxing Day sales will oblige with similar deals. That doesn’t mean the console will suddenly seem like a no-brainer, but if you’ve decided to buy it regardless then it’ll be a nice bonus.