The PlayStation 5 price went up back in August, and now, seven months later, it’s going up again, and it’s going up by a lot.
In a post on the PlayStation Blog, Sony announced that the PS5, PS5 Pro, and the PlayStation Portal handheld streaming device are all going up in price starting next week, on April 2. The company says this is due to “continued pressures in the global economic landscape,” which is likely code for the ongoing RAM shortage and President Trump’s trade tariffs. This is the most significant price jump that’s happened since the console’s launch amid historic inflation, with each version of the PS5 now going up by a whopping $100 following the previous $50 increase in August. The system launched in 2020 at $400 for the digital edition and $500 for the disc drive version. The beefier PlayStation 5 Pro is now approaching a grand, rounding out the top end of Sony’s ecosystem at $900.
The full list of new prices across different regions is as follows:
U.S.
- PS5 – $649.99
- PS5 Digital Edition – $599.99
- PS5 Pro – $899.99
U.K.
- PS5 – £569.99
- PS5 Digital Edition – £519.99
- PS5 Pro – £789.99
Europe
- PS5 – €649.99
- PS5 Digital Edition – €599.99
- PS5 Pro – €899.99
Japan
- PS5 – ¥97,980
- PS5 Digital Edition – ¥89,980
- PS5 Pro – ¥137,980
PlayStation Portal:
- U.S. – $249.99
- U.K. – £219.99
- Europe – €249.99
- Japan – ¥39,980
Xbox has also had to make similar moves by pushing the price up for the Xbox Series X/S, as well as its Game Pass subscriptions, though the latter could be attributed to reported internal revenue goals. Nintendo raised the price of the original Switch and some of its accessories last year, but hasn’t budged on the Switch 2 since its launch in June, though it seems like the company’s plan for that was to launch the thing at a high price of $450 right out of the gate. Its accessories, however, are more expensive now. Analysts were already expecting a Switch 2 price hike, and following Sony’s lead, Nintendo’s new hardware jumping to $500 or beyond feels all but inevitable now.
Trump’s tariffs were deemed illegal by the Supreme Court in February, though Trump says he will be using “alternatives” to replace those tariffs, and then announced he would be imposing a 10% global tariff through an executive order. Nintendo has since filed a lawsuit against the United States government over the matter. But the bigger factor in the ongoing gaming cost crisis is likely a shortage of components driven by the AI hyperscaling race. Hardware makers, including Valve, have had to cancel, delay, or jack up their prices across the board as the cost of RAM, storage, and other parts go up by double digits.
Sony’s announcement comes just before the end of its fiscal year but at an especially bad time for fan morale. PlayStation’s most devoted players were already frustrated over the recent studio closures of Bluepoint Games and Dark Outlaw Games. The PS5 generation has so far had more price hikes and PlayStation studio cuts than new first-party franchises. It’s unclear what the latest increases mean for the price of an eventual PS6 but one thing’s clear: nobody’s in a rush to see it come out.
