On August 27 Rockstar Games released "Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look", a 26-minute in-game preview that debuted on Netflix six hours before reaching YouTube. That half hour was enough: within roughly 48 hours the PlayStation 5 Pro — the console fans expect to deliver GTA 6's best version — had vanished from major US retailers.
The MSRP sellout
On August 28 Best Buy and Target were already out of stock, Amazon and Walmart carried only third-party listings at $1,299, and PlayStation Direct was alone in holding the $899.99 list price. Days later the console disappeared from Sony's own store too: on September 2 Tom's Guide recorded the PS5 Pro sold out across every major channel, from PlayStation's store to Amazon. On September 4 PlayStation Direct briefly returned at $899.99.
The secondary market set its own price. Completed eBay sales reached $1,200 for a new console, while asking prices topped about $1,499; Tech4Gamers photographed eBay asks between $1,200 and $1,500 with outliers up to $2,250, and Amazon at roughly $1,400 new and $1,150 used.
The list price never moved: it is still $899.99. Every console that changes hands through resellers therefore delivers a $400 to $600 premium to whoever had stock, and Sony earns not a cent more — the industry sells consoles at or below cost, as its own pricing notices keep reminding consumers.
The race for MSRP is documented by the tracker TrackaLacker: on August 26 Best Buy's PS5 Pro page flipped between in stock and out of stock repeatedly within hours, at full list price, before going dark for a week.
The real driver: memory
GTA 6 hype was the spark, but the fuel has been building for months in the memory market. On April 2 Sony raised the PS5 Pro from $699.99 to $899.99, citing component shortages and rising RAM and memory costs; the March 27 announcement covered the whole PlayStation lineup, consoles and Portal alike, across the US, Europe, the UK and Japan.
Rivals followed the same logic. From August 1 Microsoft lifted Xbox prices by $100 on 512GB models and $150 on 1TB models, saying console storage and memory prices had risen more than 2.5 times and that another doubling is expected by fall 2027; Nintendo moves the Switch 2 from $449.99 to $499.99 on September 1, after AI data center spending pushed LPDDR5X costs up 90% in the first quarter alone.
TrendForce's numbers measure the underlying wave: in the second quarter of 2026 conventional DRAM contract prices rose 58-63% quarter over quarter and NAND flash 70-75%, with suppliers reallocating capacity toward AI servers and locking in long-term agreements with cloud customers. The third quarter slows but continues, with DRAM expected up 13-18% and NAND up 10-15%: AI inference keeps absorbing the supply, and console assembly lines compete with data centers for the same silicon.
The next round: GTA 6
The game lands on November 19. Rockstar has confirmed PS5 Pro enhancements without detailing them, while the preview footage was captured on a standard PS5 — the Pro is the choice of players who want the maximum, not a requirement. Demand, meanwhile, speaks for itself: 77% of GTA 6 pre-orders come from PlayStation players, according to Tech4Gamers.
Sony is expected to restock before launch, and PlayStation Direct's September 4 return confirms the official channel is the way to pay list price. Until November, though, the price of a living-room console stays tied to something much bigger: how much memory the AI data centers need. The question circulating among players remains the same: pay $400-600 extra to have it now, or wait for the list price?
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