Rockstar Games told everyone Grand Theft Auto VI runs at 30 FPS on consoles and people went out and bought the most expensive console anyway in panic.
In the days since the premiere of Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look on Netflix, the $899 PlayStation 5 Pro has sold out across every major US retailer, and third-party sellers are now asking as much as $1,300 for one. Best Buy and Target emptied out within roughly 48 hours of the reveal, while Amazon and Walmart listings are almost entirely filled third-party now, sitting at around $1,299, about 44% over sticker. Even PlayStation Direct, the last major store selling at the actual $899 price, has flipped the status to "currently unavailable."
Sure, Grand Theft Auto isn't entirely to blame. There's an ongoing memory-chip shortage responsible for keeping console supply tight for the foreseeable future, but it's no coincidence that this happened the weekend after the most extensive GTA 6 footage dropped either.
Where the PS5 Pro stands in the US
Retailer | Status | Price |
|---|---|---|
PlayStation Direct | Currently unavailable (was the last at MSRP) | $899.99 list |
Best Buy | Sold out, some open-box near list price | $899.99 list |
Target | Sold out | Out of stock |
Amazon | Third-party sellers only | Up to about $1,299 |
Walmart | Third-party sellers only | About $1,299.99 |
eBay | Resale listings | Up to about $1,200 |
US availability as of the latest checks around August 30-31.
It's weird that the most powerful console is the one that's sold when Rockstar itself has confirmed GTA 6 is running at 30 FPS on consoles at the moment, and the experts at Digital Foundry who picked the footage apart doubt even the PS5 Pro will hit 60 FPS, since the bottleneck is the CPU itself. The Pro will no doubt get enhancements, but Rockstar has not said what they are because they probably aren't sure what they'll be until much closer to the game's release.
So what's happening right now is that buyers are paying a $400 premium, or $1,300 all in, chasing a "best" version of a game nobody has actually described.
If you are set on a PS5 Pro, we recommend waiting. Sony is expected to restock ahead of GTA 6's November launch, Best Buy already has open-box units floating near list price, and handing a scalper 44% over MSRP for an unspecified bump is a fast route to buyer's remorse. We have already dug into whether the Pro is even worth it for this game and which console makes more sense. The base PS5 is what the reveal was captured on anyway, and it looked incredible enough.
On the other hand, the FOMO is real. A 26-minute Netflix show sent pre-orders up nearly 600% on PlayStation and cleared the shelves of a $900 console, all for a game that will not even run at 60.
If Rockstar still wasn't sure that the whole video game industry will bend itself backwards for GTA, this should prove the choke hold is still has on gaming, one sold-out PS5 Pro at a time.