PS5 Pro Is Sold Out at Every Major US Retailer Before GTA 6, and One Walmart Listing Wants $1,469

The console Sony says GTA 6 is "PS5 Pro Enhanced" for cannot be bought new at retail price in the United States right now, and it is not much better in Europe. As of Tom's Guide's check at 12:33 p.m. ET on September 17, the PS5 Pro was out of stock at Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, Target and PlayStation Direct, Sony's own store. GamesRadar+ found it listed as unavailable on PlayStation Direct in nine European countries. In Germany, reputable shops are asking at least EUR 1,290 for a console with an EUR 899.99 RRP, and a third-party seller on Walmart wants $1,469. And on September 17, a shareholder asked Take-Two's CEO about it on stage.

Here is what is actually known about the shortage, where the numbers come from, what Sony and Take-Two have said on the record, and what to do if you want to be ready for November 19 without paying a scalper.

Sold out in the US, including Sony's own store

Tom's Guide has been running a PS5 Pro restock tracker all month, and its September 17 entry is blunt: the console is out of stock at Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, Target and PlayStation Direct, and "there have been no signs of stock since the GTA 6 Extended Look premiered on Netflix." The only ways to get one from a major retailer are second-hand: GameStop's pre-owned and refurbished units, which vary by store, and Best Buy's open-box units at select locations. Back Market, the refurbished marketplace Tom's Guide also links, had no Pro stock either.

The scalping is happening inside the big retailers' own marketplaces. Tom's Guide says it has seen "several third-party sellers using retailers like Best Buy, Amazon and Walmart to scalp the console for eye-watering prices," including a listing on Walmart for $1,469, and Amazon third-party listings above $1,300. Its advice, which we share: "don't give in and pay scalper prices."

It has not been a continuous blackout. On August 28, the day after the Extended Look, GamesRadar+ reported that PlayStation Direct appeared to be the only major US retailer still selling the Pro at $899, with Amazon and Walmart showing only third-party listings at $1,299, Best Buy and Target out, and eBay units selling for as much as $1,200. Notebookcheck reported a PlayStation Direct restock of the 2TB Pro at $899.99 around September 4 that sold through. Stock has come and gone in small waves; it has not come back in a way that lasts.

Europe is worse: nine PlayStation Direct stores empty

GamesRadar+ checked Sony's own European storefronts on September 16 and found the PS5 Pro listed as unavailable on PlayStation Direct in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the UK. In Germany, it notes, reports from late August show that has been the case for weeks.

Heise, the German tech outlet, put numbers on it on September 15. Its subhead reads: "In just two weeks, the PS5 Pro has become over 40 percent more expensive." Reputable German shops were asking at least EUR 1,290 for a console that cost about EUR 900 at the end of August, and Heise is direct about the cause: "The price increases of the PS5 Pro correlate with the gameplay reveal of GTA 6 on August 27th." On Sony's store, it writes, "the console is sold out, with no indication of when it will be back in stock." GamesRadar+, reading Heise's price-comparison chart, found asking prices as high as EUR 1,399.99 from listings it attributed to sites like Notebooksbilliger, and notes that many of the inflated listings come from third-party eBay sellers.

The base console is a different story. Heise puts the PS5 Slim Digital at about EUR 570 and the Slim with a drive at about EUR 620 in Germany, at or below Sony's RRP. The shortage is a Pro shortage.

What the demand data says

The clearest demand figures come from idealo, the price-comparison site, whose UK data was published via PC Guide on September 15. In the week GTA 6 pre-orders opened in late June, PS5 Pro demand on idealo's UK platform jumped 348% week-on-week. The week of the Extended Look brought a second spike of 144%. The Pro's UK market price on idealo rose from £649.99 on June 3, a discounted price, to £789.00 on September 3, which is roughly Sony's £789.99 RRP. In the UK, in other words, the discounts vanished; the above-RRP scalping is a Germany and US story.

Katy Phillips, idealo's senior brand and communications manager, framed it this way: "Grand Theft Auto releases are landmark cultural events, but GTA 6 is proving to be a massive catalyst for the hardware market specifically." The same data shows the base consoles moving too: the UK market price of the PS5 Slim Digital went from £439.99 to £495.99 and the standard Slim from £479.99 to £519.99 between June 3 and September 3.

One caveat on all of it: idealo measures interest and listed prices on a comparison site, not units sold, and GamesRadar+ says of the European price surge that it cannot prove GTA 6 is the cause, only that "there's certainly a correlation."

What Sony and Take-Two have actually said

Sony has not publicly addressed the September PS5 Pro shortage. The most recent Sony supply statement we can find is the one Kotaku reported on July 30, from Sony's quarterly results: "we have secured the quantity of memory necessary to meet our projected sales volume for FY26." That covers total PS5 volume for the fiscal year and never names the Pro.

What Sony has done is raise the price, three times in the Pro's life. It launched at $699.99 in November 2024, went to $749.99 on August 21, 2025, and to $899.99 on April 2, 2026, with the UK at £789.99 and Europe at EUR 899.99. Sony's stated reason for the latest rise, from Isabelle Tomatis, its VP of global marketing: "With continued pressures in the global economic landscape, we've made the decision to increase the prices of PS5, PS5 Pro, and PlayStation Portal remote player globally."

Take-Two got the question in public. At its 2026 Annual Meeting of Stockholders on September 17, a shareholder asked whether "the shortage of PS5 Pros" was changing the company's PC plans. Strauss Zelnick answered that Take-Two launches "for any platforms for which there's a meaningful audience," and that "the PC platform is becoming more and more important to our company over time," per GamesRadar+. He did not announce a PC version and did not comment on Pro supply itself. We covered the exchange in our shareholder-meeting update.

Do you actually need a Pro for GTA 6?

Nobody outside Sony and Rockstar knows what the Pro version adds. PlayStation.com's GTA 6 page carries the "PS5 Pro Enhanced" label and says the game "is released for PlayStation 5 and PS5 Pro on November 19, 2026," but neither company has published a resolution, frame-rate or ray-tracing figure for either console. The same page says the Extended Look was "captured entirely from in-game footage on PlayStation 5," and Tom's Guide reads that as the game running on a base PS5 and looking "stunning." Sony's June 24 "plays best on PS5" post, co-signed by Rockstar, talks about DualSense haptics, 3D audio and the SSD; it never mentions the Pro.

Rockstar's Rob Nelson has said the game runs at 30 fps on consoles and would not promise a 60 fps mode, even on the Pro, which we break down in our 30 fps explainer. If the Pro's advantage turns out to be resolution and image quality rather than frame rate, a base PS5 is a perfectly good way to play on day one. Our PS5 or Xbox guide and cheapest way to play GTA 6 cover the rest of the decision.

What to do instead of paying a scalper

• Buy the base PS5 at RRP. The PS5 Slim is $649.99 and the Digital Edition $599.99 in the US, and both are in stock. Every official statement about GTA 6 covers the standard PS5.
• Keep checking PlayStation Direct. It is the retailer that has restocked, briefly, twice since the Extended Look. GamesRadar+ wrote on August 28 that it is "possible – likely, even – that Sony will replenish PS5 Pro stock for retailers ahead of GTA 6's actual release."
• Consider open-box or refurbished. Best Buy open-box, GameStop pre-owned and refurbished, and Back Market are the routes Tom's Guide lists, all with a retailer behind them rather than a marketplace seller.
• Do not buy a "GTA 6 PS5 Pro bundle." We can find no Sony or Rockstar console bundle for GTA 6. The only bundles on record are retailer-assembled ones, like EE's UK packages from June. Anything claiming to be an official one is not.
• Treat any listing over RRP as a scalper. A $1,469 Pro is a $899.99 Pro plus $569 for nothing, on a console whose GTA 6 advantages have not even been announced.

The bottom line

Nine weeks before launch, the PS5 Pro is sold out at every major US retailer and Sony's own store in nine European countries, German prices are 40% above where they were before the Extended Look, and demand spikes track GTA 6's reveals almost to the day. Sony has said nothing about it, Take-Two's CEO answered a question about it by talking up PC, and Rockstar has not said what the Pro version even does. Get a base PS5 at retail price, watch PlayStation Direct for restocks, and let the scalpers keep their $1,469 listings.

Sources

• Tom's Guide - PS5 Pro restock tracker, latest updates
• GamesRadar+ - PS5 Pro prices surge as high as EUR 1,400 in Europe as stock issues persist
• GamesRadar+ - PS5 Pros all but vanish after GTA 6 reveal, going for up to $1,300
• Heise - After GTA 6 reveal, PlayStation 5 Pro climbs towards 1,300 euros
• PC Guide - GTA 6 effect caused PS5 Pro demand to surge 348% in a week, idealo data shows
• Notebookcheck - PS5 Pro is back in stock on the official PlayStation store
• PlayStation Blog - New price changes for PS5, PS5 Pro and PlayStation Portal (March 27, 2026)
• PlayStation Blog - PlayStation 5 price changes in the U.S. (August 20, 2025)
• PlayStation Blog - Grand Theft Auto VI plays best on PS5 (June 24, 2026)
• PlayStation.com - Grand Theft Auto VI
• Kotaku - Sony says it has enough RAM for all the PS5s it plans to sell this year
• GamesRadar+ - GTA 6 on PC sounds even more inevitable in Take-Two CEO's latest comments