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Refurbished PS5 Pros now cost $1,399 at GameStop, 50% more than new ones — retailer bumps price of refurbished consoles as brand-new units remain out of stock It's just $100 short of a brand-new PS5 Pro from Best Buy. GameStop has increased the price of refurbished PS Pros from $800 to $1399.99, meaning used units cost 55% more than their list price for brand-new consoles, and well over double the PS5 Pro's original MSRP. A Redditor working at the retailer has leaked a memo telling employees that the higher price of used consoles versus new ones is intentional. A r/GameStop subreddit moderator has confirmed the validity of the post, saying that the original poster has been properly vetted. The leaked prices are now showing on the GameStop website. Brand-new PS5 Pro units have an MSRP of $899.00, which has already increased from $749.99 earlier this year because of chip shortages. It’s unclear whether Sony requires retailers to sell brand-new PS5 units at or close to the MSRP, but they generally have more freedom in setting the prices of pre-owned devices. Unfortunately, it seems that there’s a shortage of new PS5 Pros across several retailers. Sony, GameStop, and Target, which list the consoles at $899.99, are out of stock. While new consoles are available on Best Buy and Walmart, they’re priced at $1,496.01 and $1,554.99, respectively. Gamers who find these prices too rich might want to take their chances on eBay or Facebook Marketplace, but the situation there isn’t any better. New sealed PS5 Pros are going for more around $1,300 or more on these platforms. While they might be cheaper, you’ll miss out on some of the protections and peace of mind that retailers with brick-and-mortar stores provide. Many people blame the AI-driven memory chip crisis for the PS5 Pro shortage. AI data centers’ appetite for HBM and willingness to pay top dollar for these chips meant that DRAM manufacturers have pivoted most of their capacity towards this more lucrative market, with manufacturers of consumer goods fighting over a smaller pie of DRAM production. The situation has led to a 500% increase in RAM prices in the past 12 months, with the shortage now starting to spill over into other industries like smartphones and automotive manufacturing. The situation is likely compounded by the anticipated launch of GTA VI this coming November, which started pre-selling in June 2026. While Rockstar isn’t targeting 60 FPS for the game at launch, it seems that gamers are willing to pay top dollar just to ensure that they can get the best possible performance when the game finally arrives after years of waiting. It seems that buyers who have saved just enough cash to buy a PS5 Pro are out of luck as retailers are taking advantage of the shortage and jacking up prices, even for used models. The basic PS5 Digital (Slim) and Disc (Slim) editions are still priced at or close to the MSRP, though, so those who want to get their hands on a PlayStation right now without overpaying scalpers would have to settle for these instead. Gamers who are specifically buying a console just to play GTA VI at launch could also settle for an Xbox Series X instead, which is a bit cheaper than the PS5 Pro at MSRP while offering more performance than the base PS5, or they could experiment with the open-source AnyPS5, which runs PS5 console games natively on PC. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics. - thesyndrome There's something very disgusting about acknowledging that the used price is higher than the new price, and then providing ZERO reasoning for the employees about why this is the case. I'm struggling to think of reasons, is it so that they can intentionally NOT sell the used ones to consumers (because what lunatic would pay more for a used console when a new one is cheaper?), so they can save the memory modules inside to be sold to a corporation for more profit? Reply - Trake_17 It's not disgusting. And the person that would pay more for a used one isn't insane, they simply can't find an alternative one. The author calls this scalping, but that's not accurate. Scalping is buying up all of a new thing to create artificial scarcity to drive up prices. This is normal supply and demand economics and it's the nature of markets. What's disgusting is the market manipulation going on with the AI companies, Nvidia, and hyperscalers. That's not normal market stuff and that's the actual culprit.Reply - GenericUser2001 Something no thesyndrome said:There's something very disgusting about acknowledging that the used price is higher than the new price, and then providing ZERO reasoning for the employees about why this is the case. I'm struggling to think of reasons, is it so that they can intentionally NOT sell the used ones to consumers (because what lunatic would pay more for a used console when a new one is cheaper?), so they can save the memory modules inside to be sold to a corporation for more profit?There is actually a good reason why someone might want the used PS5 over a new one - jailbreaks. PS5 jailbreaks for every firmware except the very most recent one have dropped, and that is appealing to some people. Reply - TerryLaze GenericUser2001 said:Something no There is actually a good reason why someone might want the used PS5 over a new one - jailbreaks. PS5 jailbreaks for every firmware except the very most recent one have dropped, and that is appealing to some people.Why would a refurbished console not been updated to the latest firmware??? The most basic of "refurbishing" would include turning the console on to see if its even working at all and connecting to PSN to see if it is a banned system or not... Reply - TerryLaze Trake_17 said:The author calls this scalping, but that's not accurate. It's accurate enough and what the common person would call this. These are trade ins that people do for store credit most of the time, since cash is much lower, gamestop usually will give you about30-40% of new price, and they turn around and sell them for twice the new price. Reply
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