As for the price itself, it’s clearly too high and I have a theory about this. Four years into the current console generation, the official asking price for the PlayStation 5 remains the same as it was in 2020. There have been cost reductions in how the machine is made, culminating in last year’s ‘Slim’ model. However, these reductions have been offset by rampant inflation and the fact that the latest processor manufacturing technologies no longer deliver both higher transistor density and lower pricing. The latter is the whole reason why Xbox Series S exists. Our big interview with Microsoft from 2020 laid out the issue that Xbox saw no way to cost-reduce Series X to an acceptable degree, seeing them make a cheaper machine for day one. Sony would have had the same visibility on certain costs, yet chose to pursue the PS5 Pro project regardless.
At the same time, the very nature of PS5 Pro as a more niche, enthusiast console means that subsidising the cost of that hardware makes no sense whatsoever as it will not be bringing new users into the PlayStation platform - the chances are that the audience will be existing PS5 owners already invested into the ecosystem.
So, the concept of a £699/$699/€799 console is likely explained by the notion that Sony is looking to at least recoup its costs with the hardware or better yet, actually make money from it. The end result is the staggering price we see before us - but does this seal the fate of the console? I’d argue that it depends on sales expectations. I expect PS5 Pro to sell out - but all consoles do at launch, owing to low availability and FOMO. The real question is whether PS5 vs PS5 Pro delivers the same 80/20 split in sales that PS4/PS4 Pro delivered across their life cycle. Sony would have seen that ratio as a best case scenario for the new model - but the price point certainly makes this target much more challenging.
I think a key takeaway for me is what this pricing will do to the future of console pricing. As Leadbetter says, it’s worrying, especially for anyone who really enjoyed the simplicity of console gaming:
And more than that, the last-gen ‘pro’ consoles also saw price increases that set the stage for the more expensive hardware of today. If that trend continues and PS6 costs the same as PS5 Pro, inevitably a majority of the audience will be priced out of console gaming - and that’s exceptionally worrying. It’s no wonder that Xbox seems to be looking to align more closely with the PC platform. Whether it’s down to competition or simply the fact that a PC can do more than a console, price increases don’t seem to have made too much of a dent on the format’s popularity - and perhaps that’s why Xbox is looking to more closely align with that platform.
Speaking of PC, I’m seeing some commentary suggesting that users may be better served by investing in PC hardware instead. You’d need a Core i5 or Ryzen 5 system with something like an RTX 4070 to produce a technologically superior PC, which may well be a challenge. However, I feel these arguments miss the point. PS5 Pro is aimed at an enthusiast PlayStation enjoyer. Inevitably, this user has an existing library that they want to keep as opposed to starting from scratch on PC.
More to the point, the console still plays a different role: until Microsoft provides a new version of Windows that provides as seamless an experience as a console does, we’re nowhere near comparing like with like. The PC still lacks the out-of-the-box experience that works with a joypad on a living room display. I expect either Xbox or Steam - or both - to address this in the fullness of time and at that point, we may well be looking at the final convergence of PC and console hardware.
It also seems likely that next-gen consoles will be a lot more expensive than we’re used to. Component costs aren’t coming down, the console market isn’t growing, and Microsoft’s Xbox chief Phil Spencer admitted earlier this year that subsidizing hardware is now challenging because the price of components isn’t dropping fast enough.
Last year, a Microsoft document revealed that the company had planned to subsidize the Xbox Series X and S to the tune of $1.5 billion in 2021 to hit its price targets of $499 and $299, respectively. “That’s our largest hardware subsidy ever” in Microsoft’s profit and loss for its gaming division, the document revealed. With Xbox Series S / X sales still lagging behind the PS5, it’s unlikely that Microsoft is going to gamble again on highly subsidized Xbox hardware for its next-gen consoles.
While I’m hopeful that the price of next-gen consoles won’t push close to $999, I can’t help but think that a $699 price tag wouldn’t be all that surprising by the time next-gen hardware arrives. Maybe we’ll all need to work more hours to afford one. We’re heading into uncharted territory for console generations, and Sony’s PS5 Pro pricing is about to test the waters for the decisions that Sony and Microsoft are making right now for their next-gen hardware choices. Hold on to your disc drives and wallets, because consoles are about to get expensive.
I’ve always enjoy console gaming and I never imagined a point where I’d stop buying them. But if a hypothetical PS6 is also around $700 USD and we continue to have to pay $99+ for cloud saves and online play, console gaming is going to get a lot less accessible to the general public. And that makes me sad.
The price point of the PS5 Pro will inevitably cause a lot of commentary. The price point differential between the PS5 and PS5 Pro is between 40-50%, which is significantly more than the differential between the PS4 and PS4 Pro at launch. In the US, the PS4 Pro launched at $399 and the slim PS4 was $299 at the time, a 33% differential. Additionally, the slim PS4 had a retail price of $299 having dropped from the original PS4 launch price of $399.
PS5 Pro pricing reflects Sony’s adjusted strategy to protect its margin, general supply chain inflation and a lack of direct competitor to its mid-cycle upgrade compared to last generation (where Microsoft was preparing the Xbox One X). The lack of competition means it is an easier decision for Sony to run with a higher price point to protect its existing margins. For most prospective PS5 consumers, the standard edition will represent the value sweet spot.
Without proper hardware competition, Sony can charge what they want for a mid-cycle refresh. Tom Warren makes a similar point in the same Verge article I liked to above:
Sony hasn’t ever increased the price of the PS5 in the US, the one market where it still faces competition from Xbox sales. Microsoft admitted last yearthat it has a 20 percent market share in Europe, compared to Sony’s 80 percent share. When there’s no competition in Europe, Sony can adjust prices by 10 percent or sell a new PS5 Pro for €799.99 (about $884).
Pricing is even worse in the UK for the PS5 Pro. The PS5 originally launched at £449 in the UK and $499 in the US — a currency gap given the weaker value of the British pound over the past decade. After the price hike to £479 in 2022, the UK is now facing £699 pricing for the PS5 Pro compared to the $699 launch price in the US. If you want to purchase a PS5 Pro and the separate disc drive in the UK, it works out to a steep $1,045. In the US, it’s as little as $818 with sales tax in many states for the same console and disc drive, nearly a $230 difference.
Sony faces little competition in Europe and the UK from Xbox console sales, and Microsoft’s plans for an Xbox Series X redesign have been put on hold. It seems to be skipping a mid-generation spec bump in favor of an all-digital white version of the Xbox Series X and a 2TB limited-edition model. Neither of these offers the improved GPU that the PS5 Pro includes, and it leaves a gap for Sony to set the PS5 Pro pricing around the world accordingly.
If this hardware gap continues in various international markets, which may depend on what the future strategy is for Xbox, and Sony maintains a significant lead, we may see them price a lot of people out of console ownership. I used to worry about PlayStation going under because it would hurt competition in the hardware space. How naive I was.
The only gaming show on YouTube I watch basically said that Sony have put the price at £700 because they can. The show also mentioned something I posted on the main site - a straight conversion from $700US is not £700. Even with any kind of shipping/import tax, it’s not even close to £700. So Sony are totally screwing people over. In Australia it’s going to be close to $1200AU.
In my admittedly simple view, at this price point they - and any other console manufacturer - can get stuffed. I’m at a point now where I’m more than happy to sit a generation behind and wait for things to become affordable; Gods know there are enough games. Obviously this is personal to me, but there is no way in all the loop-the-loops of Green Hill that I’m going to work more just for a console. You can bugger that idea right off.
On the larger scale, I agree with the article that said if this is the price going forward many will be priced out of the hobby, or at the very least folks will go for cheaper options.
I’m no economist, but I think Sony are going to see backlash over this. Personally, I hope the gaming public at large refuse to buy the thing and that Sony, and the gaming industry as a whole, are made to pull their collective heads in.
I think there is a very good chance they sell out at launch. Sony also won’t manufacture as many as the base PS5 so targets will be more modest. It doesn’t need to be their main driver, they probably just need to sell an 80/20 split of PS5s to Pros.
I think it’s also highly likely the next Xbox will be similarly priced. I don’t think the console manufacturers can (or want to) subsidize the price of consoles, and they can’t bring the cost down mid-generation like they used to because the components are too pricey. I think this is just the beginning, and is MS sees Sony successfully sell $700 consoles, they will too.
Probably some combination of the above in certain cases. But it worries me because we might never see a console at the prices we have been used to ever again if the manufacturers stop subsidizing the costs.