The PlayStation 5 Pro went on sale in select markets on Thursday. While customers in regions like US, UK, EU and Japan can pick up a PS5 Pro at a participating retailer or direct.playstation.com, the upgraded console is not currently available in India. The PS5 Pro has not made its way to the market here — and won't be arriving anytime soon — owing to a telecom spectrum hurdle in the country, Sony confirmed Friday.
Why PS5 Pro Is Not Available in India
The PS5 Pro supports Wi-Fi 7 (IEEE 802.11be) that utilizes the 6Ghz spectrum band, which has not yet been allocated in India. Sony has now provided an official update on the console's availability in India.
“PS5 Pro will not be available in some countries (which currently includes India) where 6GHz wireless band used in IEEE 802.11be (Wi-Fi 7) has not yet been allowed,” the company said in an official statement Friday.
The 6Ghz spectrum has been contested between technology firms and telecom operators in the country, with the former seeking its allocation for Wi-Fi and the latter wanting the same for 5G and 6G services. According to a Financial Express report from last month, the Indian government is likely to reserve a portion of the 6Ghz spectrum for telecom companies to expand 5G and 6G services in the country. The 6 GHz band includes frequencies in the range of 5925-7125 MHz.
While this regulatory hurdle is preventing the PS5 from launching in India and is unlikely to be resolved soon, several countries have allocated the entire 6Ghz spectrum to Wi-Fi. Meanwhile, the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance has urged the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) to allocate the entire 6GHz band for unlicensed Wi-Fi use, according to a report in Capacity Media on Friday.
The PS5 Pro was announced in September and went on sale in select markets on November 7. The console comes with hardware upgrades over the PS5, packing improved RDNA graphics with 16.7 teraflops of GPU compute performance. The console also features double the storage of the PS5 and comes with advanced ray-tracing features and Sony's new AI upscaling technology. The console is priced at an MSRP of $699.99 (roughly Rs. 58,750).