If I don't buy a PS5 Pro will I use my PS5 less? History says that's exactly what will happen

I loved my Steam Deck. At one point I was using it daily as my main gaming platform. It fit my life better than consoles, gave me access to the wider (often cheaper) library of games on PC, and opened up a world of retro gaming. Everything was wonderful as long as I had my Steam Deck charged and nearby. But oh how quickly things change.

As soon as Valve announced the OLED Steam Deck my brain started to do silly things - although I'm hoping other people think like this, too, so I can at least get a level of comfort from group suffering. I desperately wanted the OLED Deck, a marginally improved version of the device that had changed my gaming life for the better, but I just couldn't justify the cost. There was no getting around it. It made far more sense to stick with the Deck that was serving me well and buy the properly improved Steam Deck 2 later on.

Looking back, maybe I was wrong. You see, despite the fact that I adored the Steam Deck and frequently sang its praises to whoever I could make listen, the very moment the OLED model arrived on the market a switch flipped in my brain. This device almost instantaneously went from something I couldn't be without to another gaming handheld that gathered dust. The fact that I could be using a superior device made me not use the old device at all. I did say it was silly.

This has continued for 10 months now - an utterly bizarre choice my brain makes despite the fact that my own personal experience hasn't worsened at all. It's as if I'm punishing myself for not staying up to date with the latest technology. Given how much I was enjoying the Deck up until that point, investing in the OLED probably would have been the right thing to do. Now I'm caught between feeling like making the leap but also knowing that the proper successor is a lot closer than it was. Which brings me to the PS5 Pro.

I've already given you the pleasure of reading my various random thoughts on the PS5 Pro, why I don't want to buy it while at the same time being desperately keen to get one to have some good years with the second half of the PS5's lifespan. The Pros and Cons lists seem to always be con-heavy, and yet, I think about the Steam Deck and I'm torn. Is my PS5 about to suffer the same fate as my one-time darling?

I can see my future, and it's not great. As I sit down to play the Until Dawn remake on PS5 I'll be reading about how it's been enhanced for the PS5 Pro. Pure speculation on my part here, but, better ray tracing and vastly improved image quality you say… hmmm. That sounds good. Like some petulant child who kicks up a stink about his ice cream being smaller than his brother's, throwing said ice cream to the ground in protest and missing out on ice cream entirely, I turn off the PS5. I sit there and sort of sulk. A 42-year-old sulking. Ruining my own enjoyment of things because of bitter jealousy. A Have has become a Have-Not, and I didn't like it.

Maybe I should just buy the PS5 Pro. Stop with all this posturing about the price and how it fits into the lifecycle of the PS5, and just buy the thing. It'd put an end to this exhausting amount of thinking I've put into a device I'll probably only use a couple of times a month to look at the reflections in GT7 and jump around a bit in Astro Bot.

It absolutely isn't worth it. Is it?