Sony to Sell Refurbished PS5s for Half the Price of a PS5 Pro

Sony will begin selling refurbished PlayStation 5 consoles for half the price of the recently announced PS5 Pro.

PlayStation Direct, Sony's online storefront for selling PlayStation products, announced a "Certified Refurbished" Digital Edition PS5 will cost $349.99 when it's put on sale "soon," meaning half the price of the $699.99 PS5 Pro.

The new hardware was revealed at the PlayStation 5 Technical Presentation held yesterday, September 10, 2024, alongside the $699.99 price tag. PS5 Pro does not include a disc drive or vertical stand, which means those looking to use discs and stand their PS5 Pro upright will need to spend around $805.

It's therefore perhaps not a coincidence that Sony unveiled the cheaper, refurbished PS5 consoles alongside its new premium console. A refurbished PS5 with a disc drive costs $399.99, meaning both models are $100 less than their brand new counterparts.

"Every PlayStation certified refurbished product completes a rigorous recertification process that includes full testing that meets the same functional standards as new PlayStation products," Sony said. "Your certified refurbished product works like new."

The PS5 Pro arrives November 7, 2024 and has a GPU with 67% more compute units than the current PS5 console and 28% faster memory, which enables up to 45% faster rendering for gameplay.

Ray tracing upgrades allow the rays to be cast at double, and at times triple, the speeds of the current PS5 console, and PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) technology is an AI-driven upscaling that uses a machine learning-based technology to provide super sharp image clarity by adding more detail.

Fans have expressed shock at the price, however, and myriad IGN polls suggest as few as 15% of people plan to buy a PS5 Pro. In a questionnaire asking if the console is reasonably priced, with more than 50,000 responses, 73.9% of responders said it was way too expensive.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.