PS5 Price to Increase in Japan for 3rd Time on September 2 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 September 2024 / 4,224 Views
Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced it is increasing the price of the PlayStation 5 and a number of accessories in Japan on September 2.
The price of the standard PlayStation 5 will increase by 13,000 yen from 66,980 yen to 79,980 yen ($554 USD) and the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition will increase by 13,000 yen from 59,980 yen to 72,980 yen ($506 USD).
The price of the PlayStation VR2 will increase by 15,000 yen from 74,980 yen to 89,980 yen ($623 USD). The PS5 DualSense Wireless Controller will increase by 2,000 yen from 9,480 yen to 11,480 yen ($80 USD). The PlayStation Portal will increase by 5,000 yen from 29,980 yen to 34,980 yen ($242 USD).
日本国内におけるPS5®および関連周辺機器の希望小売価格改定に関してお知らせします。
— プレイステーション公式 (@PlayStation_jp) August 27, 2024
詳しくはこちら⇒ https://t.co/BBPFcyBjtl pic.twitter.com/1oVPoTfOLC
Microsoft increased the price of the Xbox Series X and S consoles in Japan on August 15.
The price of the Xbox Series X increased from 59,978 yen to 66,978 yen ($448 USD), the Xbox Series S 1 TB increased from 44,578 yen to 49,978 yen ($334 USD), and the Xbox Series S 512 GB increased from 37,978 yen to 44,578 yen ($298 USD).
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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And everyone was expecting a price drop when the Pro is announced lmao
In USA, they will drop it. Yen is just very weak compared to USD right now. In 2022 Yen was 115 to 1 USD but last month that spiked to 160 to 1 USD
I hope so because other than holiday discounts, no console this generation has had a permanent price reduction. Only permanent price increases. Even the Switch is selling for the exact same price it did in 2017.
The base PS5 got a $50 price increase, the Switch got a $100 higher model, the Xbox has gotten multiple higher priced models.
I see no reason to expect a price drop for any console at this time.
No reason? Who's going to want a standard PS5 at 450-500$ when the Pro is in the 600$ range.
What? The PS4 Pro was only $100 more expensive than the base PS4 and people still bought the base overwhelmingly more than the Pro... Why would that be any different with the PS5/Pro at a $150 difference?
Average consumers will save money any chance they get... The Pro isn't for them.
Why wouldn't someone who isn't a more hardcore gamer keep their $150 and buy a base model. Why would a parent spend an extra $150 for a few extra frames for a kid that wouldn't notice a difference?
$300 vs. $400 is the same as $450 vs. $600, percentage-wise, and $500 vs. $600 is even better. I'm still inclined to agree with you, especially in the current economic situation, but I feel like that particular point is somewhat flawed.
A few years ago a MS official even said that wont see the price cut anymore.
Last year I got a factory sealed Series X for 350$ and used SS for 80$.
I don't think they are raising the PS5 price... but I don't think they are dropping it either.
I believe the Pro is going to be priced higher than people are expecting.
No because they don't want a backlash where everyone calls them anti consumer and boycotts them like what happened with the PS3. The 2TB XBSX is launching at 600$ and that is going to help them massively cos PS5 Pro is going to be a great deal in comparison
They likely have to in NA and probably even the EU. If they keep the base PS5 at the same price, sales are going to keep suffering more and more.
Early Pro sales might make up for that dip for a while, but for PS to try another full year of the same pricing is just asking for long term losses.
I would love to be wrong...
But we're in the latter half of the generation and sales are going to suffer either way. With the competition effectively raising the ceiling price without cutting the base I think we're just seeing the realities of the economy catching up to them.
Sony has spent billions in the last few years on cancelled games we will never see (GAAS) and studio acquisitions. They probably aren't in the best position to take an additional $50-100 loss on every console moving forward.
You realize you've got it reversed right? If 1 USD is worth less Yen than before then the Yen has increased in value (comparatively).
Surely you're not serious. Something that costs a dollar costs 144 yen. Now let's say it turns into 500 to 1 USD, you think that same item that still costs a dollar is now better paid for with 500 yen?
Yep my bad I got it reversed Still, the Yen was 115 to dollar in 2022 and then spiked to 160 in July this year.
Sad what playstation has become in japan. Neglected. At this point i don't know why anyone in japan would want a playstation. Other than dragon quest , what else is going to sell there? Next persona maybe. They need to go back to ps1/ps2 days.
lets see what final fantasy on the switch 2 will do to PS5 sales?
Crazy. After four years of the PS2 being on the market, it was 50% cheaper ($149.99) than its launch price. Imo, that's how it should be.
"Why would seven-year-old components still cost the same?" because, as I said, they cannot get smaller, as the manufacturing process cannot shrink their size, this is the limit. We currently are at 3nm(nanometer) size, the last steps in this aspects have been incremental(7, 6, 5, 4, 3nm), before that the jumps were much bigger(28, 14, 7nm). The irony is this: the smaller the steps the higher the prices, because physically is very difficult to decrease/compress the size of something that is already extremely small/crowded. Take the folding paper as an example - at first is easy to fold the paper, but the more you fold it, the more it becomes difficult(that difficulty must be compensated with money, since the work for it is harder).
Also, as chip designers(Apple, Samsung, Nintendo, Sony, MS, AMD, Intel, Nvidia, etc) need more performance out of those chips along with decent power draw, the more challenge it poses for chip manufacturer, challenges that require R&D(research and development) that has to be payed.
So expect prices to not even stagnate, but to go up.
In short - the bigger the performance, especially in smaller and smaller packages, the higher the prices.
Thanks for taking the time to type all that up. I appreciate it.
So it sounds like a real problem. They can't reduce costs like they use to, yet they have to sell a years-old product whose shine after a few years is ever-waning. It seems like a pretty tough spot to be in. They use to be able to drop prices to keep sales up. Now, they can't. What else could be done? I mean, it's not like they can churn out one GTA6 after another anymore... development is too costly and takes too long. It's a tough bind.
"What else could be done?" with the current paradigm not much, they will just just milk any drop they can until there's nothing left(that moment will come soon). After that, only a new paradigm(whatever that might be) of designing and manufacturing CPU's will allow new advancements.
I know the Japanese yen has had some issues, but this just seems like greedflation and nothing else. Globally, hardware prices are supposed to be stable or decrease over time, not increase.
The yen has actually increased lately so it's nonsense.
Please stop embarrassing yourself.
160 yen to 1 usd means that 1 usd can be exchanged for 160 yen.
Now 1 usd buys you 144 yen.
That means that you get less yen if you exchange usd to yen now than in July, in other words the yen has strengthened in comparison to usd.
Now the yen is still very weak but it has been strengthening recently, not weakening.
Instead of lowering the price of the PS5 pro to almost the price of regular PS5, they're increasing the price of the PS5 to the PS5 pro's... Lame tactic to incite ppl to buy the Pro version.
Who doesn't love it when company's increase the price of their products
That's too bad. I understand the currency is weak in JPN currently, but all consoles are well overdue for price cuts at this point.
Basically, same prices as the US but with taxes included.
Now the next Famitsu sales numbers until September third will be interesting. They will probably explode until they crash down hard after the price hike.
Hahahahahahahahahahahah.
Figured this was coming after the Xbox price increase.
Can't imagine what this is going to do for the price of the PS5 Pro.
The price of PS5 has increased three times on September 2?! What the hell?!
When adjusted for the much higher inflation of this gen (compared to any other recent generation), all of the systems have had a pretty significant price drop. The actual amount varies depending on which currency you are using. But, they're all a good bit cheaper than they were at launch, when adjusted for inflation.
Looks like PS5 was pretty cheap in Japan. With the price increase it will cost about the same as in Europe.
Hahahaha this will be the final nail in the ps5 coffin
You know what's funny? After this 3rd price increase it's still cheaper than PS5 in Poland.
After this 3rd price increase it will still also be cheaper than in Switzerland. The price of PS5 in Japan was pretty low or the price in Europe is pretty high.
It's because the Yen is very weak right now.
It’s been about as weak as it was in 6/2022. Plus Sony is a Japanese company…I would assume the Yen being weak shouldn’t have much impact on profits? Weak yen typically means infavorable exchange rate…unless I’m missing smth?
The Yen was that weak in Summer 2022, true... but it came back down afterwards.
basically, since that spike, there has been a lot of volatility with the Yen, but while the spike in 2022 was about the same level as the Yen is now, the price at which the Yen is traded now (144 Yen to the dollar) is more understood like a new floor, not a tip as it was in 2022. In fact, less than 2 months ago it broke the 160 Yen to the dollar mark, and it's expected to rise again further in the near future.
If the Yen is weak and you are (for instance) a USA company, you’ll need to raise Japanese prices in order to compensate for the dollars lost in the exchange from Yen to USD. If you are a Japanese company and the Yen devalues, however, you lose nothing (besides some of your purchasing power of foreign goods) (note that you will actually gain from the additional Yen earned in the exchange from USD to Yen when exporting). So selling PS5s in Japan with a weak Yen should not have a great impact on the profits of a Japanese company such as Sony.
That being said, why has Sony chosen this route? No idea. Maybe China is importing PS5s from Japan following Wukong’s launch. Maybe Sony’s responding to Microsoft’s decision to raise prices. Maybe Sony’s engaging in a little bit of a “boiling the frog” strategy.
That would have been the case if the PS5 was entirely manufactured within Japan with Japanese components.
Since the console is made in China, and international contracts are typically signed in dollars, and the components themselves are traded in dollars, then yes, it does matter a lot.
Sony might be Japanese but SIE is basically an American company, by the way.
I see. Was looking for clarity on this, appreciate it.
Even if the Yen held steady at 140, it doesn't matter when the dollar is still being devalued due to inflation. 140 to the dollar months ago is not the same as 140 to the dollar today. All currency has less purchasing power with each month that goes by and the costs of making a product and distributing said product is going up not down. Even increasing the sales price, is not really increasing the price, it is maintaining percentages.
It probably isn't the weak yen that has started this but rather the country raising interest rates for the first time in like 2 decades...
