PS5 Sales Reached Best Week of 2026 in the US Ahead of $100 Price Increase - Sales
by William D'Angelo , posted on 15 April 2026 / 4,213 Views
Senior Director and Video Game Industry Advisor at Circana Mat Piscatella in a social media post has revealed PlayStation 5 sales saw a boost in the US as people rushed out to buy the console ahead of the $100 price increase.
PS5 had its best week of sales of 2026 in the US for the week ending April 4th and US spending on video game hardware for the week were nearly double compared to the same week in 2025.
"Unsurprisingly, US weekly unit and $ sales of PlayStation 5 hardware reached 2026 highs during the week ending April 4th, as price increases loomed," said Piscatella. "US spending on video game hardware for the week nearly doubled when compared to the same week a year ago."
Sony on March 27 announced it would be increasing the price of the PS5 worldwide on April 2. In the US the price increased by $100 for the two main PS5 models to $600 for the PS5 Digital Edition and $650 for the PS5 with a disc drive. The PS5 Pro increased $150 to $900.
This price increase matches the price of the two main Xbox Series X consoles in the US. However, the PS5 is now more expensive than the Xbox Series X in the UK and Europe.
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 follow the author on Bluesky.
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Then they should increase the price weekly to boost the sales!
Curious how big the cliff will be post price increase
If it weren't for GTA Vi, it for sure would be a cliff. Most people who will buy GTA VI have a PS5 already, but some have been waiting.
This prediction probably sounded smart when you though it bout why, for the love of GOD would PS4 gamers ditch their whole catalog to spend more money than a PS5 on building a PC? It doesn't make sense. Their solution to a high PS5 is a higher completely unrelated platform? That crazy and borderline disrespectful of people impacted by the price.
Steam deck is a portable pc that have access to steam and plays damn near everything on ps4 and cost less than a ps5............
And why would they lose their ps4 library? They not giving their ps4 away to migrate over to pc.........
If you had giving your reply any thought before posting you would have caught all the pitfall in your comment without me having to point them out to you with my follow up.
Still at least 120 million. Most of the sale will come from the holiday deals. It always has been
No way, its not outselling the ps4 at this point, sales are gonna drop 70-90% over last year.
150k weekly, down from the current baseline at around 200-220k
The answer, at least for now is that there is no cliff as such because you can find the PS5 for way under MSRP.
de dezembro, minha previsão de unidades PS5 enviadas até o final do ano
Março 95 milhões
junho 98 milhões
Setembro 102 milhões
Dezembro 109 milhões
edit: units shipped and not sold to the end consumer
It has created such a fomo lol.
What a sad generation. Sony raises prices because they dominate the market. Microsoft raises price despite poor hardware sales because the console itself is no longer their main focus, a loss-leader or ecosystem entry point.
"Sony raises prices because they dominate the market. "
Have you seen the price of specific parts of late? Sony is not immune to that either and while they do have the opportunity to raise prices, just before the biggest release in 2 generations, you know they are going to.
But how I wish we were still in a place where console prices reduced as parts and technology became obsolete and demand was lower.
We all know what is really to blame here.
Yes RAM and memory chip prices have gone up a lot in 2026 Sony isn’t completely immune to that.
But let’s be real: this isn’t the main reason they’re raising prices right now.
We’re talking about a 6 year old product. We should also factor in the improved margins on the consoles themselves, thanks to their continued optimization of production chains.
In short, Sony is raising prices simply because they believe they can get away with it. Now it’s up to consumers to decide whether they’re right or not. But I have a feeling they probably are.
If we were in a truly competitive environment like we had 20 years ago, I'm sure the console would still be priced under €400.
Not sure I'd say "because they can get away with it." seems like the right term.
They have had a lot of scrutiny about the price increase, this increase in units before it happens is just units on shelves being sold and after they will likely see a big decrease in new units sold for a while. The console increased in price by what? like 15-20%? But if sales fall by a 25% or mroe that means they are getting less revenue and money over all.
The price increase is hurting the brand and could potentially hurt future games sales revenue too.
They could lower the price and increase users and get billions more in revenue from GTA6 sales alone as we all know most revenue comes from game sales. An increase in cost of entry means they won't.
20 years ago, Sony won the 6th Gen by 100million units over any of it's closest rivals, it lowered the price of units to £100 by the end. Sony dominated more then that now.
Now, I'm not disagreeing with you that they aren't most likely also increasing prices just because they can for greed but you know if they could they would lower the cost of the units to get more people in the door before GTA6 releases because they certainly aren't doing that now.
