What Sony can learn from Apple: Three ways to make the PS5 Pro feel more premium

Inspired by the company who wrote the book on successfully making expensive tech products pricer.

It looks like an upgrade, but does it feel like one?

My biggest mistake with the PlayStation 4: not buying its Pro model sooner to get more value out of it.

My old PS4 was on its last legs; clogged with dust, overheating on newer games with its internal fan sounding like a jet engine. But I held off as long as I could, purchasing the PS4 Pro only 18 months before the launch of the PS5. I had forked out for two consoles — devices meant to last at least five years — in a two year period. It was an error I wouldn't repeat this time around. And with that in mind, I made the plunge on the launch day of the PS5 Pro.

I'm happy with the console and so are others. The general consensus across reviews that I've read is that it’s a great product. It's really the subtle differences that help the PS5 Pro stand out from its earlier model. It's quieter, cooler and runs games more seamlessly than the base PS5. Though, on a less than two-year-old Samsung TV, it's hard for me to notice the graphical differences with the various games that I've played that are “PS5 Pro Enhanced”.

But it's been a week since I purchased the PlayStation 5 Pro, and I still find myself staring at the glaring gap in my bank account.

If the PS5 Pro was priced somewhat similarly to the PS5, it would have been a slam-dunk upgrade. But the device's near 50% price hike, typically priced at $1,199 in Australia, has divided many, including myself, as to whether the improved experience is worth the cost. While we are yet to see sales figures that will vindicate Sony's plan for the device, I still feel like the company has missed an opportunity to firmly establish what premium console gaming means.

I can't help but draw a line to how Apple has done this for the smartphone market. The company is perhaps the undisputed king of crafting a product experience that justifies — in the eyes of consumers — astronomical price tags.

The company already held the most expensive phones in the market when it decided to push the bar even further, launching a premium phone, the iPhone Pro Max in 2020. Surprisingly, the latest iPhone Pro Max model soaks up almost a quarter of all new iPhone sales according to analysis from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners earlier this year. It's one of the most popular models.

Aside from correlating the specs of its devices in line with their costs, there are other subtle ways in which Apple creates an air of exclusivity and value across its range. I've drawn on that to muse on three small changes Sony could make to lift the overall premium feel of its latest device — and perhaps better justify that price tag.

Overhaul the packaging and the unboxing experience

Unboxing videos — especially for gaming consoles — set the internet on fire. Yet, there's nothing unique or interesting about the way the PS5 Pro has been packaged. Just white cardboard and thin polystyrene. Moreover, the console is missing a stand — something that was included in the base PS5. This is purchased separately at an extra $50.

When you buy a new phone from Apple or Samsung or in fact any of the premium device makers, you can just tell that the packaging was a hot topic for internal debate. It sets the tone for the customer's perception of the product.

This was a missed opportunity to create a strong first impression that this is an upgrade from the base PlayStation 5. This won't make or break the device itself, but it's a subtle change that helps justify the console's price tag quite literally out of the box.

Launch with unique PS5 Pro UI features

This, in my view, is the most glaring oversight in this console launch. So much effort has gone into iterating the physical look of the PS5 Pro compared to the base console and ensuring that it's more powerful to boot. But then, when you turn it on, it's the exact same user interface as a regular PS5.

For those who upgraded from the PS5 to a Pro model, it completely dispels the illusion that you've purchased a superior — or even different — product. Sony did incorporate a unique screen background into the Pro consoles, but it's not enough to tip the scales. Especially given you'll see a good 60 minutes of the regular PS5 boot-up interface before hitting that screen.

Sony could even do what Apple does: Launch a unique PS5 Pro with unique features that are incorporated into base PS5 models via a patch at a later date. While there is something to be said about giving all PlayStation 5 users the same experience, many premium tech brands have monetised giving the bleeding-edge features to users of their most expensive devices.

Link Sony's existing rewards and loyalty program to the PS5 Pro purchases

Finally, Sony needs to reward its most devout customers. The challenge here is doing so without eating into the margins of the console. Sony already runs a rewards program called PlayStation Stars; you earn points for purchasing games via the PlayStation store and can redeem them for additional digital collectables or discounts on upcoming games via vouchers.

Given the console does not have a disc drive, any user of the PS5 Pro will likely want to get familiar with the program as it's the only way to provide some sort of reward and saving for Sony digital game purchases. Currently, purchasing a PS5 Pro does not interact with this at all, or encourage its new owners to sign up to it.

It's all about the small things

All of these suggestions aren't groundbreaking. And, in fairness, there's an assortment of differences between a console launch and a smartphone launch. For starters, one happens every six years, the other happens annually. Apple's bar for selling new phones each and every year is arguably higher than Sony, who only needs to sell devices every half-decade.

But, the line between premium and mundane is in fact finer than most realise. But if Sony is intending to pursue this higher ground of launching devices that compete with gaming PCs and other extremely high-end tech products, some small considerations will make all the difference.

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What I'm playing: Dragon Age: The Veilguard

One thing I can’t dispute: The graphics in this game are incredible.

Mass Effect 2 is perhaps considered one of the best BioWare games of all time. The main reason for this: its final suicide mission. You spend hours upon hours building relationships with other characters in your party in Mass Effect 2, learning to love them for their quirks and flaws. Then, as the story draws to a close the game raises the stakes. Decide poorly or skip character quests, and in its final few hours, and those members of your party will die trying to save you on the last mission.

So why am I dredging up a decade-old iconic moment in gaming when talking about Dragon Age: The Veilguard? Because the game is essentially the fantasy equivalent of the same concept. Its final quest is do or die. It's a return to form for BioWare, the makers of both games. It took an arrow to the knee following the launch of Mass Effect: Andromeda; a game famous for bugs and bizarre animations so bad that they created their own viral videos.

I'm fine mildly spoiling this because chances are if you are a BioWare fan, you've already finished the game — and possibly planning a second play through. But crucially, I also strongly believe this is the game's biggest selling point amid what is a sea of other role-playing games (RPGs) that have come out this year.

Veilguard picks up the plot of the series some time after the revelations of the downloadable content from the last game, Dragon Age: Inquisition. One of the party members from the last game, Solas, an elven mage who also happens to be an ancient god incarnate, has gone rogue, threatening to unravel the world with a plan to tear down the long-standing magical barrier holding it all together. Chaos ensues and you then form a party to foil a darker plot.

(Does this sound like nonsense to you? With this being the fourth game in the series, there's a lot of lore in Dragon Age that the game does its best to try and educate players. But honestly at this stage, you are best off watching a YouTube video to catch up.)

You play as Rook, a customisable protagonist with the choice of being a mage, rogue or warrior. Each plays uniquely in combat, which strongly encourages replayability of the game.

In terms of gameplay, the best comparison is perhaps the RPG renditions of the Assassin's Creed franchise. It's live-action combat, you attack enemies in real time. But you can pause to give your party members or Rook commands for abilities, and chain them together into combos for big damage.

You only have to worry about Rook's health too. Your party helps out, but in a departure from Inquisition's systems, you now no longer need to concern yourself with other members dying during battle. For an action-based game, combat grows to be surprisingly complex and satisfying. It’s complemented by a very customisable levelling system that also requires a bit of strategy to get the most out of your Rook's abilities. The game allows you to reallocate combat perks at will, so there's no consequence for experimenting.

Don't worry if you get lost in combat though. The game's difficulty is also incredibly versatile. If enemies aren't going down as fast as you'd like, you can tweak the difficulty settings to just lower their health (something I'd advise for a first playthrough given you're in combat a lot). But you can keep the damage they do to Rook high if you want a challenge.

The party that you form is somewhat basic at first. The cast are all unique, but initially dull compared to other BioWare games. They come into their own as the story progresses, with their arcs tackling issues as complex as gender identity, managing family politics, through to a necromancer grappling with the fear of death. BioWare takes bigger swings here with optional content than a lot of other RPGs, and perhaps some of the richest most interesting conversations in the game happen during the character side content.

The one downfall here is that you spend a lot of time in Veilguard simply moving from interaction to interaction. This feels very stilted compared to Metaphor Re:Fantazio, which warps you directly to other characters when they have something meaningful to say. Ultimately it slows down the pace of the game. There's mild side-quest bloat in the game too, with just a few too many than I'd like. However, more thought has been put into each side quest than your average RPG. Each builds on the world, and is far from a waste of time. But there's just a lot of them.

This leads to another issue: There are fewer impactful story decisions here than say Baldur's Gate 3. Your choices matter in the final few hours of the game, but aside from that, sequences that affect the world as a result of your decision are few and far between. This is perhaps what makes the side quests feel a little tedious. The game offers the illusion that your decisions have lasting consequences, but more often than not they just change a line of dialogue, with the exception being the game’s final arc. The proof is in how little I reloaded my game to see what lies down the other path of the decision tree. I only did this once, in the last few hours of the game.

Veilguard's systems and characters uniquely grow on the player the more that you play the game. Initially, within the first few hours, I felt as if the game didn't surpass the highs of Inquisition, and didn't stand out among the flood of other RPGs I've played just this year. But by the time I finished the game, I was ready to start a new character and play again — a sign of a great RPG.

I'd wager that any strongly negative reviews blitzed through the game, skipped side content and hit the final mission as fast as they could. That's not the way to play this game. It's a slow burn, where you explore every nook and cranny, finish every character quest and kill as many optional Dragons as you can.

In this way, I believe knowing the stakes at the end of the game actually improves the experience. After all, who would rush any preparation for a suicide mission?

Worth playing if you like: Baldur's Gate 3, The Mass Effect series, Assassin's Creed Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla.

Available on: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows

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