unexpected movement, Sony announced Due to the global economic environment and high inflation, we plan to increase the price of PlayStation 5 game consoles in almost all regions.
Price increases are set at around 10% in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Canada, Japan, Asia Pacific (APAC) and Latin America (LATAM). The only market that hasn’t seen a PS5 price hike is the US. Given the strength of the U.S. dollar over the last few quarters, it is logical that the U.S. missed out on this price hike.
“Given the current global economic environment and the impact of SIE on businesses, this price increase is necessary, but we are committed to ensuring that as many players as possible can experience everything PS5 has to offer and what is yet to come. Improving PS5 supply is our number one priority,” Sony said in a statement.
Going forward, PlayStation 5 pricing will be as follows:
| PS5 with Ultra HD Blu-ray | PS5 Digital Edition | |
| Europe | €549.99 | €449.99 |
| England | £479.99 | £389.99 |
| Canada | 649.99 Canadian Dollar | 519.99 Canadian Dollar |
| Australia | 799.95 AUD | 649.95 AUD |
| Mexico | Mexican Peso $14,999 | Mexican Peso $12,499 |
| Japan | 60,478 yen | ¥49,478 |
| China | ¥4,299 | ¥3,499 |
It’s very rare for console developers to officially raise the recommended price of their consoles. This is because their goal is to ship as many units as possible, often with a small margin. Hardware sales are often leveraged to sell software and services (such as subscriptions). Another reason platform owners are reluctant to raise the price of their devices is that they are competing not only with other consoles and PCs, but with other forms of entertainment in general. So, making an entertainment platform more expensive will naturally drive at least some customers away.
In fact, Nintendo said a few days ago Nikkei Because we wanted to grow our install base and because we needed to compete with other forms of entertainment, we didn’t consider raising the price of the Switch console.
Another reason Sony’s decision to raise the price of the PS5 is surprising is that console developers typically tend to lower the cost of manufacturing hardware two years after launch (in fact, Sony has decided to make the PS5 digital edition more expensive). We’re optimizing for cost. Sony has a history of releasing multiple cost-cut PlayStation consoles, dating back to the original PlayStation 1, which saw port removal and component consolidation.
We live in a world where it’s getting more expensive to produce chips with contract manufacturers, making it harder and harder for chip designers to bring down costs and prices to companies like Sony. The company is still unable to fully meet demand for its latest platform, so a price hike could more or less balance the supply-demand balance.
