“You can buy a gaming PC for 120,000 yen.” Japanese people have been seeing an increasing number of advertisements worded this way in the past few days. But what else costs 120,000 yen? A PlayStation 5 Pro, as recently revealed by Sony.
The announcement of the PS5 Pro’s steep price tag has caused significant dissatisfaction both in the US and Europe, where the console will set gamers back $700 and €800 respectively. But much like European gamers, Japanese players are faced with paying even more for the console than people in the US. The 119,980-yen price point is equivalent to over $840, based on recent conversion rates.
To make matters worse, Sony recently hiked the price of standard PS5 console models in Japan. On September 2, the suggested retail price jumped from 66,980 yen (about $463) to 79,980 yen (about $552). Apart from severe backlash across social media, this decision caused the console to sell out all over the country in the days leading up to the price increase and even gave the Xbox a boost in sales.
I have one, and yes, it is bad.
But I wasn’t talking about resolution. 40FPS is semi-tolerable on a handheld. Anything less than 60 on a TV is a miserable experience, with or without adaptive sync.
Eh, I’ve played plenty of Switch games at ~30 FPS and it’s fine. 40 is much better, and I honestly don’t see a point in 60 on a TV. That said, I don’t tolerate much below 60 on my PC though, and I generally avoid playing more intensive games on my Steam Deck (I prefer to play indies that give 60 FPS). Framerate matters more for me the closer I am to the screen.