{"id":802245,"date":"2026-10-14T11:06:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T11:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/802245\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T11:06:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T11:06:18","slug":"sonys-midnight-black-ps5-digital-edition-launches-november-19-exclusive-to-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/802245\/","title":{"rendered":"Sony&#8217;s &#8220;Midnight Black&#8221; PS5 Digital Edition Launches November 19, Exclusive to Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sony has <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.ja.playstation.com\/2026\/10\/13\/20261013-ps5-dej-black-announcement-s\/\" target=\"_blank\">announced<\/a> a Midnight Black version of its Japan-only PS5 Digital Edition through the Japanese PlayStation Blog, and it goes on sale on November 19 for \u00a555,000 (roughly $350) including tax. That&#8217;s the same day GTA 6 launches, and Sony mentions the game right alongside the console in its announcement. Pre-orders open on October 20 at PlayStation retailers and online stores in Japan. The new model, CFI-2200B02S, comes with the same catch as the white <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techpowerup.com\/353194\/amid-playstation-5-pro-shortages-sony-implements-lottery-system-based-on-playtime?cp=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Japan-only version<\/a> from last November: the system language is locked to Japanese, and the console only works with PlayStation accounts registered to Japan. Other than that, it&#8217;s a regular PS5 Digital Edition with an 825 GB SSD. A matching Midnight Black disc drive also launches on November 19 for \u00a511,980 (about $76).<\/p>\n<p>The pricing is the more interesting part. When Sony raised PS5 prices worldwide in April, the Japan-only model stayed at \u00a555,000 (~$350), while the standard Digital Edition in Japan jumped to \u00a589,980 (~$570). In the US, the Digital Edition <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techpowerup.com\/347817\/sony-makes-playstation-5-price-hike-official-ps5-pro-usd-899-99-from-april-2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">now sells for $599.99<\/a>, so the region lock seems to be there mostly to stop these units from being exported. Sony also used the announcement to repeat that new PlayStation games will be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techpowerup.com\/350446\/physical-disc-production-ending-january-2028-for-new-games-releasing-on-playstation-consoles?cp=4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">digital only from January 2028<\/a>. That&#8217;s a slightly awkward message to pair with a brand-new disc drive, especially since physical copies still bring in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techpowerup.com\/352604\/physical-discs-still-drive-a-big-chunk-of-revenue-for-playstations-top-exclusives\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">sizeable share of revenue<\/a> for its biggest exclusives. There&#8217;s no word about a release outside Japan, and with US console <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techpowerup.com\/353571\/xbox-and-playstation-us-sales-sink-as-average-console-prices-hit-record-highs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">prices sitting at record highs<\/a>, it&#8217;s reasonable to expect that this cheaper black PS5 stays a Japan-only affair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sony has announced a Midnight Black version of its Japan-only PS5 Digital Edition through the Japanese PlayStation Blog,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":802246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-802245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gb","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802245","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=802245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}