Sony Group Corp. raised the price of its PlayStation 5 console by around 25% in Europe and in the UK ahead of a likely US increase.
The company announced the decision on its PlayStation blog, with Australia and New Zealand also affected, citing inflation and “a backdrop of a challenging economic environment.” The PS5 will cost €500 in Europe and £430 in the UK from Monday.
What the fuck does Europe have to do a console from a Japanese company that is made in China and US tariffs?
If I had to guess, it’s probably to keep pricing parity across regions and avoid a clusterfuck of import loopholes.
Didn’t stop them when the EU prices were the higher ones due to taxes.
The headline here is confusing and not covering all the changes. Some prices are staying the same and some are actually going down. There’s something else going on here and I don’t get it.
Or just money, as they already have the ability to region price and region check software?
It’s called an excuse, same as we had with covid, supply chain issues, Ukraine war, energy prices, erc. Capitalist greed is limitless, they will use any excuse possible
Yeah WTF? Obviously the rest of the world needs to suffer for the cost increase in the US… Maybe now is the time to preorder a Switch 2 before Nintendo change their worldwide pricing. It’s cheaper than $450 USD here in Australia right now.
Yeah, a great opportunity to raise the prices worldwide!
US prices raised will go to the US government, while the rest of the world compensates for the US applying tariffs.
Just raise the prices in the US because they need to the lesson, not us.
This will be the last thing I buy from Sony until they stop this nonsense.
Or, I know this may sound crazy, but… you could stop before buying this “last thing” tbf you know how they say you vote with your wallet
OK, so this is weird and that headline doesn’t tell the full story.
So in Europe the only price going up is the non-Pro base PS5 Digital Edition (by 10%, not 25%).
The PS5 SKUs with a disk drive are staying the same. The PS5 Pro price is staying the same. The standalone disk drive price is actually going down.
So… WTF is happening here?
I’m guessing that the fact the US dollar is collapsing thanks to tangerine man and the Euro is quickly becoming a reserve currency and the exchange rate is going up is messing with things in strange ways? Gonna guess that some manufacturing from some regions is currently more expensive to import but maybe optical drives are still being made in the EU so they can eat some of the costs that way but Australia gets hit by both? I don’t know.
Man, what a mess. It’s the dominoes meme but with the US having a shit public education system on one end and Australian PS5s getting more expensive in the other.
The PS5 SKUs with a disk drive are staying the same.
What SKU still has a disk drive? I thought both the slim and pro were optical disk-less?
Just quoting the source blog. I’m guessing the phat non-digital SKU is either still in production or still in stock.
Gentle reminder that you can always build yourself a gaming PC for less, especially now that thanks to Proton 75% of the top 1000 titles run on Linux.
You can build yourself a PC for less.
You can’t build yourself a more powerful PC for less. Especially since the PS5 Pro isn’t getting a price bump in Europe.
You can barely find a dedicated GPU for less money than a base PS5 at all these days. I guess if you go dumpster diving or are very patient in a used parts website you could technically get there, but it’d be a bit of a project.
On initial purchase, without used parts, no. But once you consider savings from online subscriptions over the lifespan, yes easily.
Right.
But right now, to play Fortnite tomorrow for 500 bucks that PC will give you worse looks and performance than a PS5.
I don’t mind the notion that it’s still a better purchase and you get a computer to work and study out of that deal and you have an easier upgrade path and no need to pay subscriptions. All that as it may be.
But it’s not a no-brainer at all and it’s more expensive in the vast majority of scenarios.
I’d be less nitpicky about this, but it actually was true for a couple of years in the Xbox 360/PS3 generations, when consoles were very limited by several parts of their hardware and PC GPUs were amazing value for money. Think 970-1080Ti range.
But that has changed a lot and it’s important to acknowledge that while consoles have become less value by having fewer exclusives and more upkeep costs through online subscriptions, PCs have become less value by an absolutely bonkers bananas insane reduction in GPU availability and value for money. Thanks, cryptobros and AIbros.
It unfortunately takes some thinking and checking options to see what makes sense for a gamer on a budget these days. It’s a lot harder than it used to be across the board, and that sucks.
New, it’s hard to get under $500, but unless you plan to play entirely offline you will need a PS Plus subscription, which costs at least $80/year. If you have the console for 5 years, that’s an extra $400 just to use the thing and you can easily build a brand new PC that demolishes a PS5 for $900.
There is still a bigger initial cost, but you save so much in the longterm with a PC. I understand why people go for consoles, it’s so simple, but I’d never recommend one ever.
And that includes many PlayStation exclusive games that are currently available on steam
Gentleman, there is a solution here you are not seeing.
Does AMD who makes their APU factor into this at all or is it just greed?
