Sony’s PS5 price hikes prove that this console generation is far from over. good.

If you have Postponement when picking up a PlayStation 5 Hoping to lower prices, bad news: cost Every model of Sony’s universal consoles Instead it just went up dramatically.

It’s a move that breaks with decades of tradition (or at least consumer expectations) and is undoubtedly a blow to anyone hoping for a discount, five years on from the current generation of consoles. However, it is also a sign that the current generation is likely to stick around for a while – which is the case maybe Which is good for the industry and players alike.

Historically, at this point in the console generation, existing hardware sees significant discounts. For example, the PS4, which launched for $400 in 2013, was selling for $300 by 2018, a 25 percent drop. Even if the hardware results in a loss, it is a pricing path that is usually profitable for manufacturers and customers alike. Production and component costs typically decline over the course of half a decade, allowing companies to reduce retail prices, often along with reduced hardware revisions. At the same time, gamers who didn’t catch on at the console’s launch have a cheaper entry point and years of games to catch up on. But this generation was not typical at all.

Generational distortions

You have witnessed the AI ​​bubble RAM and SSD storage prices They have skyrocketed in the past few months, affecting the entire global technology sector. Sony as a whole has been hit hard by this, with the recent announcement Suspending her memory card worksWhile the PlayStation corner was in the fiefdom It has just been confirmed Long-running rumors of price increases for its family of consoles.

The new MSRPs went into effect on April 2, and there is no certainty that they represent significant increases. The “entry-level” PS5 Digital Edition console — the one that doesn’t have a disc drive — is the hardest hit, jumping to $600. This is $100 higher than the previous retail price in the US (which was already high after the previous price). Rising again in August 2025driving it Trump’s definitions) and 50 percent higher than its launch price of $400 in 2020.

The price of the base PS5 with a disc drive has increased by 30 percent from its original price of $500, which now costs $650, while PS5 Pro The price is “only” up about 29 percent from its $700 launch price, setting buyers back $900 — though it also doesn’t come with a disc drive, so prepare to pay Another $80 To play physical games or Blu-ray movies. elsewhere, PlayStation PortalSony’s portable device that allows users to stream games from their PS5 or the cloud, also rose $50, from $200 to $250.

PlayStation is not alone in increasing its prices. Xbox has increased its hardware and GamePass subscription It costs several times in 2025, eventually raising the MSRP of the high-end 2TB Xbox Series Evade switch 2 Price increases caused by tariffs at launch But it is also said that he is “considering raising the price of this device in 2026.” Per BloombergThe same report indicates that Sony may delay the inevitable PlayStation 6 release to 2029, all because of the parts crisis caused by artificial intelligence.

Even Valve’s portable Steam Deck isn’t immune – while prices have been so far It just rose In Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, the manufacturer Announce The original (cheaper) 256GB LCD model “is no longer in production, and once sold will no longer be available” while the newer OLED models, available with 512GB or 1TB storage, “may be intermittently unavailable in some regions due to memory and storage shortages”.