It’s been a race to get them before a new deadline as gamers attempt to save money by getting Sony’s consoles before more price increases. The tech industry, including the oft-considered safer side of console releases, has been turning in strange directions for some time now. From natural disasters damaging factories to a pandemic, scalping reaching unseen levels, and now a chip shortage which could potentially affect anything from a toaster to a high-end PC, there’s seems to be no shortage of events to disrupt costs of consumer products and Sony’s PlayStation 5 is no exception.
Launched in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic, it debuted at $399, a price many still considered high at the time. However, thanks to limited availability, that price was a bargain compared to what scalpers were charging as online and in-store inventory disappeared at the blink of an eye. Days and years would go by, and eventually, a global supply was established. A Digital-slim version would be released in 2023, with the PlayStation 5 Pro arriving a year later for a whopping $699.99. As if that price tag wasn’t staggering enough, there would be more price increases and storage configuration shrinkage. The latest culprit, of course, is the DRAM/NAND shortage caused by the AI industry boom.
Sony announced that as of April 2nd, gamers would now have to pay $599 for the Digital version, $649 for the base, and, cough, choke, cough, $899.99 for the Pro edition. Well, it seems more than a few were paying attention to this, and according to the Circana Research firm, sales figures nearly doubled before the price hike compared to the same time last year.
It’s still too early to say whether these will be the last price hikes for the current PlayStation models, since Sony isn’t expected to release the PlayStation 6 until 2027 or possibly 2028. Meanwhile, gamers are being left with increasingly tougher choices as their hobby incurs higher costs to consider.