Second-hand things cost less than new things. That is not a law of economics so much as a basic assumption about how shops work, and GameStop spent the first week of October quietly proving it optional.
On October 6 the retailer repriced its pre-owned PlayStation 5 Pro stock. A used digital model now lists at $1,399.99. The same retailer’s page for a new PS5 Pro says $899.99. That is a $500 premium for the privilege of buying a console somebody else already owned.
Then an internal memo started circulating on Reddit, and it did not contain the word “error”.
What is actually going on, in short
- The listing: pre-owned PS5 Pro at $1,399.99, with a disc-drive bundle reported at $1,499.99
- The new price: $899.99, which is academic, because it is out of stock almost everywhere
- The memo: an unverified internal message reportedly tells staff the elevated pricing is “intentional” and could reach $1,500
- The cause: GTA 6 lands November 19 carrying a PS5 Pro Enhanced label, and Sony has marketed the Pro hard as the way to play it
- The catch: at least one report found the pre-owned listing marked unavailable, so this may be a price on a thing you cannot buy
The price ladder, as it currently stands
Reported figures vary between outlets, partly because GameStop has multiple SKUs in play and partly because the numbers moved during the week. Here is the range, with the caveat that any of these could change again before you finish reading.
Worth sitting with the grey bar at the top for a second. The PS5 Pro launched in November 2024 at $699.99, and at the time that number was treated as an outrage. Anyone who bought one then, took the criticism, and still has the box is now holding an appreciating asset. One commenter summed up that feeling with some satisfaction: “Everyone I knew was on my ass for getting a pro at launch after trading in my launch ps5. Paid $400 with the disk drive.”
The memo, and how much to trust it
The document driving the outrage is an internal message, reportedly from GameStop, shared on Reddit. It appears to alert employees to PlayStation price rises and states that the PS5 Pro costing considerably more than it should in stores is intentional. The same memo suggests pricing could climb towards $1,500.
Before building a theory on it, the provenance deserves a clear-eyed look, because coverage has not been consistent on this point.
| Claim | How solid is it |
|---|---|
| The $1,399.99 listing exists | Solid. Multiple outlets independently saw the listing on GameStop’s own site |
| New units are out of stock | Solid. Stock trackers show nothing at Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart or GameStop, and nothing on Sony’s own store |
| The memo is genuine | Unsettled. Some outlets call it unverified. Others say forum moderators vouched for it. GameStop has not commented |
| GameStop called it “intentional” | That word comes from the memo, not from a GameStop statement. The distinction matters |
| You can actually buy one at that price | Doubtful. At least one outlet found the pre-owned item marked unavailable when it checked |
That last row is the one nobody wants to dwell on, and it is quietly the most important. A price on an out-of-stock listing is not a transaction, it is a signal. It costs the retailer nothing and it establishes a number in everyone’s head. Whether any human being has actually handed over $1,399.99 for a used console is a completely open question.
Why GTA 6 is the whole answer
Grand Theft Auto VI arrives on November 19, and the scale of that release is hard to overstate. It is widely expected to be the single biggest entertainment launch ever attempted, and it carries a PS5 Pro Enhanced label on the PlayStation Store. Sony has leaned into that hard, positioning the Pro as the definitive console way to play it.
Put those two facts next to each other and the demand curve explains itself. A large number of people have decided, in the space of a few weeks, that they want the best possible version of a specific game, and there is exactly one console that delivers it. Supply did not move. Desire did.
It is not only a GTA 6 story, though. Console pricing across the board has been under pressure all year from trade tariffs and a genuine memory shortage that has pushed component costs up industry-wide. The Pro was already a hard console to find at list price before Rockstar gave everyone a deadline.
The hardware gap is real too, which is the uncomfortable part. Sony has spent this generation steadily differentiating the Pro, and the AI upscaling work the company has been rolling out started on the Pro before reaching the base PS5 at all. People are not paying a premium for a sticker. They are paying it for a measurable difference in how a game looks, at a moment when one specific game matters more than usual.
About those five-figure listings
You will see claims circulating that Walmart, Best Buy and Amazon are listing PS5 Pro consoles at wild prices, some of them absurd enough to be quoted in the tens of thousands. Treat those carefully.
Those are third-party marketplace listings, not retailer pricing. Anyone can list anything at any price on a marketplace, and a listing nobody buys tells you nothing except that a seller has an optimistic imagination. The meaningful data point is GameStop, because GameStop is pricing its own inventory on its own site, which is a decision somebody at the company actually made.
What to do instead of paying $1,399.99
- Set stock alerts rather than refreshing pages. Restocks at list price do happen and they go in minutes. A tracker beats willpower
- Consider whether you need the Pro at all. GTA 6 will run on a base PS5. Pro Enhanced means better, not required
- Watch Sony direct. First-party restocks tend to be at actual MSRP, with queueing rather than scalping
- Be patient past launch week. Panic-buying premiums historically collapse four to eight weeks after the game everyone wanted ships
- Check local second-hand markets. Private sellers in your own city have not read the GameStop memo
The reaction has been exactly what you would expect
Goodwill towards GameStop was not abundant to begin with, and this has not helped. “So GameStop is scalping now,” one person wrote. “I’m sorry for those who for some reason or another still work there, but I hope GameStop craters and goes out of business asap.”
Another drew the comparison that stings most: “First Pokemon cards, now consoles. I can understand the games as games increase in value because the ending of production, but current gen consoles?”
That objection is sharper than it looks. Collectible pricing on discontinued goods is at least coherent, because supply really is fixed. A current-generation console in active production is a different proposition entirely. Pricing it like a collectible is a bet that the shortage lasts longer than customer patience does.
It also arrives in a year when Sony’s relationship with its own audience has been fragile. The decision to stop producing physical discs from January 2028 triggered petitions, organised blackouts and legal threats. Then there was the reporting around an exclusive GTA 6 cloud streaming arrangement that Microsoft went on to flatly deny, which is a reminder of how much noise surrounds this release and how little of it survives contact with a direct question.
What to watch next
- Whether GameStop comments. Silence has been the strategy so far. A statement either confirms the memo or kills it
- Whether anything is actually in stock. If the pre-owned listing stays unavailable, this was a price signal rather than a sale
- Sony’s supply through November. If Sony can get new units onto shelves before launch week, the premium evaporates
- Whether $1,500 materialises. The memo floated it. Watching whether it arrives is the cleanest test of the memo’s authenticity
- Post-launch pricing. December is when we find out whether this was a shortage or a repricing
The bottom line
A used PS5 Pro at GameStop currently lists somewhere between $1,330 and $1,500 against a $899.99 new price that you cannot act on because nobody has stock. An internal memo that the company has not disowned reportedly tells staff this is deliberate. The cause is a single game arriving in six weeks with a label on it saying one console does it better.
None of that obliges you to participate. GTA 6 runs on the console you probably already own, the premium is a function of a deadline rather than a change in the hardware, and six weeks after launch the people who waited will be playing the same game for several hundred dollars less. The only genuinely scarce thing in this story is patience.
Sources and further reading
- TechPowerUp: leaked GameStop memo calls the $1,399.99 used PS5 Pro pricing intentional
- Tom’s Guide on the listings, the stock situation and where to look instead
- TheGamer: GameStop ups the price of a pre-owned PS5 Pro
- Notebookcheck on the disc-drive bundle price and the GTA 6 connection
- TweakTown, which treats the circulating memo as unverified
- BGR: the price of a used PlayStation 5 Pro is through the roof
- UNILAD Tech: why used PS5 Pro console prices are skyrocketing at GameStop
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