{"id":515234,"date":"2026-04-06T03:45:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T03:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/515234\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T03:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T03:45:15","slug":"sonys-ps5-price-hikes-prove-this-console-generation-is-far-from-over-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/515234\/","title":{"rendered":"Sony\u2019s PS5 Price Hikes Prove This Console Generation Is Far From Over. Good."},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve been holding off on picking up a PlayStation 5<\/a> in hopes of a price cut, bad news: the cost of every model of Sony\u2019s all-conquering console<\/a> has instead just gone up considerably.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a move that breaks with decades of tradition (or at least consumer expectations) and is undoubtedly a blow for anyone hoping for a discount, five years into the current console generation. However, it\u2019s also a sign that the current generation is likely to stick around for a while yet\u2014and that may be a good thing, for the industry and players alike.<\/p>\n

Historically, at this point in a console generation, incumbent hardware sees steep discounts. For example, the PS4, which launched for $400 in 2013, was retailing for $300 by 2018, a 25 percent decrease. Even if hardware is loss-leading, it\u2019s a pricing trajectory that\u2019s usually win-win for manufacturers and customers alike. Production and component costs will typically have dropped over that half-decade, allowing companies to drop the retail price, often alongside slimmed-down hardware revisions. At the same time, players who weren\u2019t won over at a console\u2019s launch have a cheaper entry point and years of games to catch up on. But this generation has been anything but typical.<\/p>\n

Generational Abnormalities<\/p>\n

The AI bubble has seen RAM and SSD storage prices<\/a> skyrocket in the last few months, impacting the entire global tech sector. Sony as a whole has been hit hard by this, with the recent announcement that it was suspending its memory card business<\/a>, while the PlayStation corner of the fiefdom just confirmed<\/a> long-standing rumors of price increases for its console family.<\/p>\n

The new MSRPs went into effect on April 2, and there\u2019s no sugarcoating that they mark significant increases. The \u201centry-level\u201d digital edition PS5 console\u2014the one without a disc drive\u2014is the worst hit, leaping to $600. That\u2019s $100 higher than its previous US retail price (which was already up following an earlier hike back in August 2025<\/a>, driven by Trump\u2019s tariffs<\/a>) and a staggering 50 percent higher than its $400 launch price back in 2020.<\/p>\n

The base PS5 with a disc drive is up 30 percent on its original $500 price, now costing $650, while the PS5 Pro<\/a> “only” goes up around 29 percent from its $700 launch price, setting buyers back $900\u2014though it also doesn\u2019t come with a disc drive, so prepare to shell out another $80<\/a> to play physical games or Blu-ray movies. Elsewhere, the PlayStation Portal<\/a>, Sony\u2019s handheld that allows users to stream games from their PS5 or the cloud, has also increased by $50, from $200 to $250.<\/p>\n

PlayStation is far from alone in increasing its prices. Xbox increased its hardware and GamePass subscription<\/a> costs multiple times in 2025, eventually bringing the MSRP of the top-end 2-TB Xbox Series X to its current $800, and is rumored to be considering another hike. The Switch 2 dodged tariff-induced price hikes at launch<\/a> but is also reportedly \u201ccontemplating raising the price of that device in 2026,\u201d per Bloomberg<\/a>\u2014and the same report suggests Sony may be delaying the inevitable PlayStation 6 to as far off as 2029, all due to the AI-induced parts crisis.<\/p>\n

Even Valve\u2019s handheld Steam Deck isn\u2019t immune\u2014while prices have so far only risen<\/a> in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, the manufacturer has announced<\/a> that the original 256 GB, LCD-screen model (the cheapest) \u201cis no longer in production, and once sold out will no longer be available\u201d while the newer OLED models, available with either 512 GB or 1 TB of storage \u201cmay be out-of-stock intermittently in some regions due to memory and storage shortages.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019ve been holding off on picking up a PlayStation 5 in hopes of a price cut, bad…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[113999,23843,205,59,696,136,954,622,86,56,54,55,3178,183],"class_list":["post-515234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-console-games","tag-consoles","tag-gaming","tag-gb","tag-microsoft","tag-nintendo","tag-playstation","tag-sony","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-video-games","tag-xbox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}