Talking Point: Is Sony Being Stingy with PS5's First-Party Pricing?

I cant believe you actually have to ask this..of course everybodys happy to pay £70 for their games...

It's unbelievable to me that this site continues to whine about pricing when Sony specifically discounts its first party games. It's $10, it's not that much!!! Stop whining about this. Game prices need to increase due to inflation and they haven't increased in a LONG time. It's not a big deal.

After Tesco just not bringing me Ratchet & Clank in my order, there’s no chance in hell I’m paying any more than they were selling it for. Eventually these games will drop to a price that each and every one of us will be tempted by. Money’s a personal thing, each of us values these games differently and has different circumstances. I’ve been priced out day 1 for sure and typically my mum would buy us a big recent game for Christmas back in the PS4 and even Wii days but that’s not really feasible this gen unless it was a last-gen game. I do think £70 is that bit too much but there’ll always be some people willing to pay that.

It wouldn't be so bad if there was price parity across regions, even with taxes included the UK pays ~20% more.

When I do buy Sony first party it is always physical so I can trade it in once I'm done.

The problem is that I don’t want to store the physical copies. Takes up a lot of space after a while. Sadly I end up paying a premium for the convenience of digital

I don't really think of things in the same way the article frames them. It isn't that I'm buying less, I'm just waiting a few months now.

It has become increasingly clear, in my opinion that you should only buy a game at launch if you have maximum hype, as within a few months it will be sub £50, or less.

There are so many games now, there isn't much need to pay full price. Unless you're a Nintendo fan, then the word "sale" won't be in your vocab.

@pumpkin_head It’s a weird one for sure. Games are releasing in a worse state for a higher price at launch than they ever have. Nintendo are the exception, the games aren’t going down in price but they’re basically all extremely polished day 1 as well. I’ve never felt like I should have waited with a Nintendo game.

I buy digital only for my digital PS5
I don’t use physical media for anything anymore.
Including films etc, even my car music is all on one tiny usb stick.
Digital is the now and the future and so convenient.
I pay for what I get, quick and convenient and I love it.
If I could eat digital food I would 😂

I'm yet to buy ps5 exclusive game. Been having console since late April. Focusing mostly on my backlog in the meantime.

I said it before and I will say it again, the pricing of the games Sony does is ridiculous and super unfair. Why do I have to pay 85 euro when it cost 70 dollars in USA. I rather buy second handed physical copy down the line for 20. For everyone who thought they save 100 bucks by buying the cheaper model. Sucks to be a digital-only console owner tho.

I've had the PS5 for a year and still haven't bought a game at 70, I don't plan to in the near future no matter the game. I'll happily wait for deep sales, I'm in no hurry plus they will be 100% patched by the time I get said games.

Returnal is worth full price. You have xbox that gives away their games, nintendo that doesn't offer discounts on 10 year old games, and Playstation who is in the middle.

As long as it's a lavishly produced single-player experience with lots of high-quality content and no garbage monetization, I don't mind paying $70.

AAA development is an interesting thing to watch because it’s pretty clear how unsustainable it really is. Everyone wants bigger, faster, more grafix, more more moaaaaaar. Well, more is expensive. REALLY expensive. The pricing probably DOES make sense, but how tenable is this long-term?

If the price allows for grander AAA experiences like only Sony can deliver and the £69 price is only exclusive to said AAA games then yes, I will still support it.

People forget that games in the 90's ala Megadrive (Genesis), N64 games, etc were £59.99. And then years later in the PS4/5 era, with inflation, games have dropped to £49.99, yet the budgets for said games has increased dramatically. That doesn't add up at all. We need to make sure the industry is sustainable if we want grand AAA experiences (and others) to thrive the way Sony's do.

@nessisonett I've ordered ratchet (and deathloop) from tesco today so will wait and see if it comes tomorrow. Probably get substituted for 25 bottles of tomato ketchup

Hold on. America is getting the same games for less money? how the ***** is that fair sony? I am a day one PS1 player and have been for decades, why am I paying more for the same game???

I will always support the playstation brand with purchasing new releases at full price, Microsoft can't spend money faster than they acrue it. Sony, keep making fantastic games and making great investments. Your up against a boss with infinite energy and you are doing the impossible.

Normally I would buy my games at launch and leave them on the shelf until I am ready to play them despite continuing to work my way through my back catalogue.

Now though, I haven't bought Ratchet and Clank or Returnal yet. I will eventually but when I'm caught up with the games I'm currently playing. By then they'll be cheaper, and I always buy physical not digital.

Currently playing Immortals Fenyx Rising and soon will be moving on to Oddworld SoulStorm. Both are physical PS5 copies despite Oddworld being given away on PSPlus.

I get Sony need to make money but I think they're being greedy where they can't afford to. This could push gamers away from PlayStation rather than to it, especially when some people don't care about Sony first parties or exclusives in general while Phil Spencer continues to dangle that GamePass carrot in front of everyone.

I can’t believe Returnal is still averaging £50! Rachel and Clank is £25 from Tescos and been out around the same time.

Sonys pricing is going down the Nintendo route but their games are different

@Dezzy70 hahaha same here!! Except the food not sure
I've been buying digital only since PS4 pro when I got it in 2018

I save some money buying in another PSN regions..

And yes games are expensive in general, specially on consoles.. PC full prices are still 60€ or sometimes free (",)

@auditor01
They haven't increased in a long time in some countries but here in the UK they did. At the start of the PS4 generation they went up from an average of £39.99 during the PS3/X360 generation to £54.99 and then increased again at the start of the PS5 generation to £69.99 each. That's a big jump in just 7-8 years to almost double the price.

US pricing leap $60 > $70 Id say is fair
UK pricing at £50/55 > £70 is too much of an increase

Its the main reason why I havent made the generational leap.

Yes, they are.
I simply refuse buy any game at that price. I will wait for a price cut.
They can increase all they want. I just won't buy. It's that simple.
I am in EU btw. 70 euros for a game is just too much. It's not justifiable.

At the end of the day it's the captive audience situation.

A lot of new PS5 owners and Sony can basically charge them over the odds to have something to show off why they bought one in the first place.

What I don't understand is the colossal PS4 price hikes.

I rent games way cheaper

Anyone on this site that complains about PS games pricing needs to go buy a Nintendo Switch to play Nintendo's exclusive. PS's game prices will look mighty fine by comparison.

Pretty dumb article. Not many people are going to say that they are cool with higher prices. It actually doesn’t affect me much as I buy whatever I want. Also, saying $20 off of a game that’s less than a year old is not a good deal, is pretty lame on ur part. That’s a pretty good deal. Nintendo still wants full price for games like Zelda, MK8 and many other first party games. I’m happy with what Sony is doing. It’s a great time to be a PlayStation gamer!

I'm from México here NIntendo is expensive, i have been paying 80+ for Nintendo games since the switch release so i don't really care aboit it, videogames aren't food or water they are luxuries and i have always knew that because i paid for my vg since i was a kid.
So i find cute when people from countries with way better economy than mine cry over this topic.

Also, is also funny people saying they buy less when there are only 3 new games with that price and the 3 of them are for a very specific audience. I want to hear that same response when Spiderman 2 is out. I know a lot of people are going to say they will wait but numbers don't lie, more than 30 million spiderman out there waiting for a sequel.

The price is right on the Last of Us 2 right now, but I can't buy it because of two reasons. 1) It's in PS Now, so PSN shows I already own it and won't let me buy it. 2) I fully expect a Director's Cut of the game to come along.

@B_Lindz Nintendo games hardly drop price, but by default are cheaper. At least here on EU. They go for 60 euro or less.
And for the record, Nintendo has been having sales on them on their online shop as well.

I honestly don’t get this ‘controversy’, its the same as its always been. Digital is vastly more expensive than Physical.

Don’t like PSN’s prices? Don’t buy digital games and walk into a store/shop online instead.

Show them the price you want to pay by cutting out their 100% store percentage cuts and buying elsewhere.

@B_Lindz But Nintendo games average at £50 day 1. As in the price of PS4 games. What are you on about?

ive bought exclusively digital basically since late 2017 i prefer to save my shelf space for older games like ps3, 360 and prior but i'm totally okay with the price going up as the quality on 95% of games they publish out weighs the price in my opinion.

@nessisonett i think he means that the price on nintendo first party havent changed in the life of the switch i.e breath of the wild is still the same price it launched at and i havent seen a sale yet for it

I have a rule....$20 for first party games is the highest I'll pay and Ubisoft I wait a month after launch and pick it up at half of from Bestbuy or Amazon. I prefer the Xbox controller....and GamePass...so buying games is a lot less these days. The UI on the Xbox is better I think, it integrates with my apps more. Sony's UI feels like its from the Soviet Bloc, just the minimum.

I jumped on a PS4 Pro 2 years ago for Cyber Monday, grabbed 6 games for $10 each and just picked up Ghosts of Tsushima for $20 at Bestbuy today.

I'm sure there are plenty of folks like me, but fancy a Playstation first, get the Xbox later on and will be happy to grab the must play titles later in the lifespan of the console.

There are just too many games out there to pay full price for unless you are a diehard fan of things, in which case, you likely aren't spending too much time on other games to begin with.

if the game is good i have no issue paying 10$ extra for it. Ratchet & Clank was great , so i never had any issues with paying more for them.

@alexbolton2 there have definitely been sales on breath of the wild, even on nintendo's digital store. Having said that, the best I've seen has been about 1/3 off, and they've never dropped the RRP at all (as opposed to say The Last Of Us 2, which is already much cheaper when it's not even in a sale, than it was when it released just last year). I've bought a PS5 and got my PC gameworthy, and built up a whole 400 game (roughly) backlog in the time I've been waiting for BoTW to drop to a price I'm willing to pay for it

rubbish, I bought a couple of ps5 games around the launch of ps5 and was able to get them on offer for about 40 quid and a bit more for the spiderman bundle, zero chance I'm paying 70 quid for a game 😂 then punishing early adopters with upgrade fees. No thanks. anyone happy to pay then go ahead and crack on, I'll just happily wait for sales

but i'm in canada so games from sony first party are 89.99 canadian. I buy a fair bit of games but im gon na start limiting my game purchases to the odd 3rd party game and a lot of sony first party

Use www.PSPrices.com to set up PSN price alerts. It's what I do. I am still waiting for the ultimate edition of Miles Morales to drop to $30 or less.

For years on PS4 it seemed the opposite: first party titles were discounted early after release and were often heavily discounted in numerous sales.

I wonder if this is all due to the limited player base so far on PS5 (due to difficulty obtaining the console). First party games on PS4 sold in big numbers quickly and met their targets, so could then go into sales. Many PS5 games will still be expecting to sell more copies- but only once customers have PS5s to play them on, so the discounts come more reluctantly (for now).

@B_Lindz
To be fair Sony's first party games are now more expensive than Nintendo's. I just bought Pokémon Brilliant Diamond at launch for £42 where Sony want £69 for the upcoming Horizon Forbidden West, both physical versions for me.

Generally brand new Nintendo games are in the region of £40-£50 at launch and Sony's first parties are now £65-£70.

You could certainly argue well received/reviewed games that have at minimum 10 hours of single player content are still worth $70. Multiplayer games or any you play for countless hours over months or years are certainly worth $70. Am I paying that much though? Nope. Patience is a virtue, especially with a backlog! I've had the PS5 since day one. My only purchase has been Disco Elysium. Looking forward to Returnal, Miles Morales, Rift Apart etc but I can wait.

The difference between the polls and comments on this article is pretty eye-opening.

@Jammsbro our taxes are calculated at the purchase time whereas in the UK it's VAT and added prior to the purchase time. For example, in the US if I go to buy a game for $70 and my town has a 10% sales tax, the price on the box says $70, but I end up actually paying $77.

However, those in the UK are still paying more if you look at it by the exchange rate.

We will see price drops I'm sure of it. Alot of games are getting discounted. Maybe not returnal but the other exclusives are looking at price dips.

I was happy to buy all the exclusives I've got at full price, I take advantage of any system I can, so I've had CEX cash stored from selling stuff and then bought those games with that. Still costing me £70 but at the same time not directly out of my pocket. (Those games were day 1 too) sold them after I'm done. Just need to abuse the system and it makes it seem a little better.

The AAA industry has created the purchasing loop of pay full price for a broken game or buy it for 50% off after it has been fixed.

@GADG3Tx87 I'd argue no one should pay full AAA price for a remake, anyway.

I was surprised ratchet didn't get a bigger discount was waiting on black friday to get it but if this the route sony is taking I'm fine with it.

Yes. The amount of Sony simps who actively defend them for it baffles my mind. Oh well.

Edit: the polls give me hope.

This is why I will never go digital only (until I’m forced to). You can argue that it saves you a few seconds having to get up and change a disc but the cons will always far outweigh the benefits.

Sure, you might get the odd bargain in a psn sale but only for old games that have been out for years. The stats for digital purchases are skewed for this reason and can be spun to make it seem like everyone is going digital when they’re really not. Show me the stats for digital vs physical sales of new releases. I think it will tell a different story.

Why anyone would choose to go digital only and allow Sony (not just Sony mind you) to charge them whatever they want is beyond me.

Having all your games at your finger tips you say? So do I... on a shelf at arms reach.

God help us when there isn’t a choice between physical and digital media and we’re all at the mercy of Sony’s astronomical psn prices.

@Fatewalker
Glad I have a fellow digital preferred gamer on here.
Actually true digital food would have no taste 😂

That’s not what stingy means. Sony’s pricing would arguably be greedy; customers who balk at the price would arguably be stingy (and entitled).

@JaysonWayne3121. I agree with you bruce wayne.i remember them games back in the 1990s. Cost 59$ even 70$ in 1990 for sega genesis games.i still miss the 1990s.its no problem for me because the games go on sales really fast.word up son

Well, I never buy games new. Why would I spend £70 instead of £4 for games I haven’t gotten around to yet? (I don’t keep games so I really can get them that cheap). As such it doesn’t matter to me if they are 70 or 60 or even 40
Now, I actually prefer the convenience of digital, but that convenience isn’t worth spending 10 X the price.

Realistically, console gaming is a relatively affordable hobby. I’m not celebrating price hikes but the slight increase of first party games is hardly comparable to the ludicrous increases I’ve observed within some of my and my friends other personal endeavours.

I can’t fault Sony’s strategy as there are a plethora of valid reasons to increase game prices and I appreciate not being questionably incentivized into a one sided digital economy.

Ps5 digital edition is horrible.i rather have the ps5 physical disc .im old school and i love buying my physical disc.and the games goes on sale faster.i would not buy a ps5 digital only even if it was 100$.the ps5 physical disc is way better you get the best of both worlds.physical disc and digital all in one.the ps5 disc edition is wayyyy better.word up son

I dont see your Nintendo Partner Site complaining about Zelda and Mario still costing 40€ on Sale after over 5 years lol. At least PS5 Games are cheaper physically

@MFTWrecks
I'm a sucker for Pokèmon unfortunately. And Zelda games. Even so, generally the price of Sony first parties are now more expensive than Nintendo's. At launch anyway. Nintendo games never really drop in price by much if at all.

Just need to save up a little more pocket money really, bit annoying but it's just a few more shoes to shine and chimneys to sweep really.

@fR_eeBritney agree totally, and I am surprised that Sony appear to be making a lot more physical PS5's than digital ones - had they made twice as many digital versions people have been that desperate to get hold of the console they'd have bought it even if it wasn't their preferred option - thus locking even more people in to the digital store.

Perhaps Sony are testing the water this generation before doing just that

I buy most of my first party Nintendo titles full price, though PC Optimum points helps a lot. Thats why I try and wait for PS4 titles to drops to a significantly lower price during sales before I buy them. Hell the last game I bought for PS was FF7 Remake and then it came out for free 2 months later. There also aren't any PS4 titles I HAVE to have now. The only one I've been really waiting on is Ghost of Tsushima, but I will wait for a bigger sale on it than the current one.

I mean... Returnal and R&C each came out within the year and are dropped down $20 or more at retailers.

Mariokart 8 is a re-release of a WiiU game and it's still only marked down $10-ish.

Not sure how much this truly holds water.

Well I’ve yet to buy Returnal, but at £52.49 in this sale I’m still not biting.

@Northern_munkey I'm happy paying $70 for amazing games that I want to play. I feel that Nintendo's prices are higher than Sony's prices and I'm happy with both. I just bought Metroid Dread for $60. I love the game, its totally worth the price, but I feel like Sony charges $70 for much bigger production titles, when the premium price is more justified.

@auditor01 Maybe not a big deal for those who are paid in dollars. Worldwide it's a huge increase - in Brazil it went from R$ 249.99 (already expensive) to R$ 349.99.

Personally, I no longer buy any PlayStation Studios' games at launch anymore, as much as I want to play them. The price is too high for entertainment.

@Nightcrawler71 £40 at smyths tempt you?

@MFTWrecks Yes, Nintendo charges a higher premium than Sony and does less discounting. I feel like that's their choice. I still buy games at regular price from both Nintendo and Sony and I'm happy with it. I was happy to pay full price for Mario Kart 8, first on Wii U and then repay full price on the Switch, because the game is so good and my kids love it. But it is priced at a premium, and they don't discount after a year or two like most other vendors in the industry.

As usual more hyperbolic anti Sony nonsense from Sammy.

The majority of people who buy digital have the sense to shop around for the cheapest ways to purchase top ups, if you pay the listed price you're foolish. Through Shopto, Returnal would cost you £46.35, so that "dramatic saving" as Sammy puts it from the best available deal today at retail, is in actuality a difference of £6.36.

fewer =/= less

Wonder why so many native speakers get this wrong all time.

On topic: I'm buying the same number of first party games I've always had. I just wait a bit longer till they reach a price I can easily afford. If that means having to wait a couple of years before I get to play them, so be it. I have a huge backlog anyway.

@IonMagi "I dont see your Nintendo Partner Site complaining about Zelda and Mario still costing 40€ on Sale after over 5 years lol. At least PS5 Games are cheaper physically"

Amen!

I won't pay 70 quid for a PS5 game. I don't care if they're more or less expensive to make, it's too much for me. In any case, I'm still buying "old" PS4 games at this point. Although I am gutted to have missed out on the Tesco deal for Ratchet & Clank, signed up for a clubcard and everything.

I'm at a stage in life where the extra tenner or so doesn't really impact me but it doesn't mean i like it especially when the likes of MS just give away their exclusives on Gamepass. End of the day when you're top and staying top you can do what you like sadly, Sony knows full well they charge too much but they know they can get away with it.

Doesn't affect me in the slightest. I'll always usually stump for special editions of Sony exclusives anyways. Have done since TLOU. Followed suit with UC4, HZD and then TLOU2.

I get the ease of buying digitally and not having to get off your ass to put a disc in but physical will always win that battle. R&C Rift Apart was literally going for £25 physical yesterday at Tesco here in the UK. That's literally more than half the price of digital. If there's a game I desperately want and it's sitting under say £20 digitally then I'll be tempted to get it but that's my limit.

There's too many folk enabling these price hikes by account sharing. I guarantee if Sony put a stop to that, digital sales would drop massively.

Let's not forget that (as mentioned in the article) Nintendo are probably worse if not just as bad as Sony and while Gamepass is a fun, fleshed out concept, it's still expensive or will be expensive in the long run. The £1 stacking deals won't last forever, then you're over £130 a year for it. Let's not also forget that they sell their first party titles digitally at roughly the same price as Sony do too.

I'm officially off the new console hype train now. Returnal and Demon's Souls were the only games worth the £50 I paid on release.

£50 for Ratchet and Clank left me feeling like a right plonker after I finished it a couple days after I got it. It's definitely the game that has made me realise I can wait for a year or so for definitive versions of the big releases at quarter the price.

Ironic really, as I image Sony see R&C as a huge success that justifies the huge price tag, but for me it's the game that made me spend less on other releases going forward.

@Kidfried Not in a game breaking sense at all. And similar to Skyrim, the glitchy physics engine makes the game more fun. The glitches in BOTW aren’t comparable to the average AAA game in the slightest. Look at Returnal deleting saves and crashing or Cyberpunk and the GTA Trilogy just outright not working. Ratchet’s probably the only recent non-Nintendo one that’s been relatively polished day 1.

I'm in the boat of "don't have a ps5, but by the time I get one, most games will be out for awhile and dirt cheap"....hopefully(?).

So this is the best quote from the article "for a number of years now the PlayStation Studios moniker has become a real seal of excellence"

It's true! I feel PS has the best and most diverse first party games, and yes they are a little pricier. And I don't mind paying for value.

It's like iPhone vs. Android. But Apple fans don't constantly cry and whine about pricy devices. They want the best and are willing to pay a lot for it. Android is less costly, flexible and a better fit for some. Both markets are doing fantastic and targeting different people. This article is basically saying "Yeah I went all in on Apple...but OMG why is it so expensive..can't they be cheaper like Android?"

It's great to have premium top of the line at low discount prices. But unfortunately this is not how things work.

Must admit just looked at Returnal UK £52.49
They could have done a bit better say £45.
Anyway I picked up far cry 6 instead for £41.
That will keep me going for ages.

@frankmcma I agree. Game devleopment costs have skyrocketed to an extreme extent. And I don't want Sony first party to stop making high quality games. So yes, I'll happily pay full price for games I am excited for.

I don't really care anymore. I don't buy Sony's games anywhere near launch anyway because of how rapidly the games crash in value over a year or two. So Sony deciding to squeeze early adopters even harder to ring more cash out of them only hardens my resolve, in that respect.

Nintendo games at launch, because they rarely go on sale anyway, so why wait?

Sony games after their value depreciation has stabilized. Especially when they're leaning harder on early adopters to help subsidize those drops that the rest of us benefit from.

Microsoft games (well, if and when they start putting out games I actually want to play) via GamePass.

At this point, I'm not as fussed about picking up games at launch unless I find a really good deal or can share the cost with someone (as I often do with Switch games). There's an ocean of quality games out there available at bargain bin prices, and that's not even counting my own backlog.

I will gladly pay £70 for AAA games…

Two reasons:

1: Get credit at 15-20% discount
2: Game share

This way a game that is £70 each for two people becomes around £29 (ish) each for digital 👍🏻

If it wasn’t for game sharing on PS5 I would be spending all of my time on the green machine

I used to biy physicalconly but when transfered to PS5 i devided to switch to digital. I am going to buy discounted deathloop but i will wait forbbigger price drop of returnal and ratchet. I just refuse to pay so much for the game so long after release

As far as I remember the price of games has always gone up every gen, for retail I remember paying £20 for ps1 games, then £30 for ps2 games, £30 for ps3, £40 for ps4 and then £60-£70 for ps5 games.

So sony definitely have increased the prices too much but people can't moan about a price increase as that happens every gen

So yeah that's a £30 price hike instead of

I've skipped returnal, in my view it's an indie game or at least indie level production. Plus not into rogue-like games. I bought ratchet and clank rift apart buy traded it in a week later , while graphically pretty lack gameplay like previous games, small levels. It's been like that for a lot of ps4/5 games while graphically stuff hardly any gameplay like the order 1888. I usually buy my games online like shop to, game collection , base. I generally avoid buying digital games unless there's a really good sale . I get why the prices are high on ps store; to keep the brick and mortar shops open like game but even game charges full price, where I can get 15% off from shop to in most cases

I waited on Demon Souls and MM and regret it after they failed to get heavily discounted, and I still don't own them because I feel like I'm now priced into waiting for a big sale.

I got returnal on release day and have not regretted it at all, I've now preordered Forbidden West and probably the same for Ragnarok, Spider-man 2 etc etc.

So sony got me big time, they brutally destroyed me.

@Jammsbro if it makes you feel better, the US store isn't the cheapest. It's cheaper in Hong Kong, full price is about £55 there.

@auditor01 Apparently the US is the only country in the world.

Here in the UK it went up from £50 to to £70. That's a 40% increase and to make it worse it's equivalent to 94 US dollars.

Considering I expected games to cost around $80 in the US this gen I'm not too bothered at $70. I just control my spending to where I generally allow myself at most one new game a month and thats assuming I'm all caught up on other stuff I'm playing. Sure some months I'll cheat but generally speaking I don't feel like I'm breaking the bank here.

Gaming is and always has been an expensive hobby but unlike some other hobbies if your smart with your money you can still partake in it without bankrupting yourself. Waiting for sales, taking advantage of deals, etc.

It also helps probably that I primarily play 100 hour long RPGs generally which makes ignoring new releases sometimes much easier. 😅

The only game that I'll probably shell out £70 for because I want it day 1 will be God of War.
I waited almost a year for Miles Morales to be the £30ish I felt it should have been (the same as the Uncharted Lost Legacy price since it's not full game length).
The new RRP is too expensive and I hope games are selling worse at launch so they adjust accordingly.
It's also a problem with Nintendo titles tbh, there are some games I'm interested in trying or ports of old games that I'm not paying full price for and they never go cheap.

@MatthewJP 🤔

@dschons Agreed. Also these higher end Sony games are "system sellers", they move the Playstation to the #1 selling console. Same strategy as Nintendo. Without a constant steam of system sellers, you can end up way behind in hardware sales.

This is why an all digital future isn’t attractive imo. No competition means no discounts…

I’ll buy physical for as long as I can.

Well 70£ sounds a bit crazy but I'd be fine if the price of must have exclusives never goes lower than 50£/€. Always crazy to see timeless classics like God of war or uncharted in the bargain bin. Those bins were designed for EA, Activision, Ubisoft and Bethesda.

For me its become a waiting game where ill buy them once they have a major discount .

@auditor01 our paychecks also should be adjusted for inflation then it would be fine.

No because the vast majority of Sony's exclusives are incredibly well made single player games. It seems that people in general are much more eager to complain about the pricing of Sony's games and just disregard that almost all of Ubisoft and EA's games for instance cost the same. Only those are recycled garbage and riddled with microtransactions.

Why's it more in £ than in $ shouldn't it be the be the other way around

Of course people will always want something for less money, everyone loves a bargain after all, but this constant whining is ridiculous. Give it enough time and every game will be cheaper, nobody is forcing you to buy a game. Just wait if you don't want to pay full price.

For me the moral of the story is Don't go Digital Only. It you have then you really have nobody else t blame but yourself.

Such an entitled generation, all they do is whine and complain. It's pathetic.

@Nem @Nessisonett @GADG3Tx87

I apologize. I should have clarified. I live in the U.S., so the price difference is much smaller. Switch games are $60 while PS5 games are $70 at full price, but Nintendo games almost never drop in price. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (which came out this year) just dropped to $50 at some stores while games like DK: Tropical Freeze (which came out in 2014) dropped to $45 for Black Friday, which is the lowest that price has been all year.

I'm very sorry that the prices are higher on your side of the world and I think that Sony should make those prices more even from currency to currency.

The £70 UK price includes a 20% tax that doesn't go to Sony. That's part of the price difference.

@auditor01 People with jobs and full time duties can't justify dropping 70 dollars here and there for games that are still the same length and quality as they've always been, these sales are atrocious and Xbox is currently curb stomping Sony in pricing and deals

Get a PS5 physical edition and buy used! I just picked up Ratchet And Clank, Returnal, Demon Souls, Deathloop, and a couple others from GameStop with their Buy Two Get One free sale. With the prices averaged out I ended up paying about $25 per game. Easily made up the difference in the extra expense of the physical edition and I have plenty of games to last me until the next batch of releases goes on sale. Wait six months and get in the rhythm of buying used. You'll pay drastically lower prices and you can resell them, making your savings even greater.

I think £70 is too expensive especially when were £50 previously. Also I haven't seen anybody mention that PS4 games have had an artificial hike to £60 to justify the £10 upgrade price as there would be much more commotion if the upgrade was £20. As I'm on PS4 I'm not buying anything at the moment due to the additional hike and a backlog to clear.

That said, Sony have had amazing sales on first party titles on the store throughout PS4 life and imagine will happen again going forward once more PS5'S in homes.

Also in Sony's favour is that unlike their competitors, their titles aren't riddled with micro transactions.

Lol what a question. Also, Nintendo isn't selling their games at £70 are they?

Of course Sony are testing the waters by increasing prices of their first party...and of course the Sony faithful are defending it...and of course the likes of EA and Activision are nodding their heads in approval and following along...and of course Sony are spinning it as it being needed as games are costing more...and of course there's plenty of holes in the argument when not only are others not raising their prices but Sony themselves are releasing cheaper versions of the same game on PS4 ...and of course Sony are charging for upgrades far smaller publishers are offering for free...and of course those said upgrades will continue to come as standard on their pc versions...and of course their rereleasing last gen games that are barely a year old under 'directors cuts' for £70...and of course the Sony faithful has conveniently forgotten all the mocking theyve given the Nintendo faithful over 'switch tax'...and of course you get a daft question like 'is Sony being stingy with their prices'....when of course the answer is YES!

@nessisonett you ordered online huh...they'll have gotten a lot of people like that. Subject to availability aren't pretty words.
I was lucky my girlfriend was in Tesco 6am and blagged her way to them selling it her early.
£25...less than half price. It's going to be really interesting seeing the sales charts and how high rachet and clank jumps up it...cause I'm definitely not the only one that refused to pay £70 for it.

I'd love to know how much money Sony are losing to second hand sales so far this gen.

@Jeanhenry THIS! It seems as if everyone has forgotten that PS4 brought its own price hike in Europe as a whole, so prices increased for us twice...

@tehKAMI I know it's crazy and barely anyone seems to have noticed. I'm not paying a PS5 tax when I don't bloody have one, or indeed want one at this moment.

@UltimateOtaku91 eh? I remember very well paying around £40-£45 when the playstation 1 released (destruction derby,loaded and wipeout were my first 3 games) and then a couple of years later sony brought out porsche challenge (£35) which kind of started the prices falling..ps2 games launched around the same price range (£40-£45)..ditto with ps3 and ps4 so i dont see where you get your pricings from..maybe 2nd hand if you didnt get them from GAME...

@Jeanhenry Thats not a PS5 tax, it’s exchange rate based. Sony don’t trade in £, so when something effects the exchange rate by a large amount it needs to be adjusted. A lot of things got more expensive post Brexit.

PS4 games did not get a price increase in the US, they were $60 and are still $60.

Yea I mean 70 for one game or a whole year of gamepass?... Doesn't take a genius to figure out what the better deal is..

The Problem may be that $20 off a $70 game in the first year "FEEL'S" Like its less of a discount. The new price still being $50 not $40 like it was on PS4.

Anyone and everyone can wait for games to hit that $60 price of last gen or less. But many just don't have the ability to do so! Is this Sony's fault or the individual consumers?

@ChrisDeku It's nothing to do with the exchange rate and all for the 60-70 parity. It's not just Sony though it's all parties, prices used to be from £40 from third and £50-55 for Sony. Now it's a flat £60 for anything regardless if first party or not or even if so called AAA.

Glad to see this story, and glad to hear the staff take as well. It really is a problem. I simply won't be buying any exclusive at full price, period. That's an absurd amount of money for a video game and refuse to pay to play.

The sales aren't great. Souls isn't bad. Bamco has ds3 on sale for only 10 less and that's ancient. Returnal it's simply stingy. Ratchet I'm ok with, it's only a few months old.

Got was 45 over a year ago. But that was without dlc. I still expected cheaper on the older games, and I'm probably not getting returnal at that price. At 40 I would have. And if my xsx hadn't broken I probably wouldn't get souls at 40, either but it did, so I will.

@Spoonman-2 you can also game share on Xbox of you didn't know

Im still playing ps4 and ps3 games mainly because of a lack of a must have game to make me want a ps5. The higher price does not bother me as much but i definitely understand why it can be an issue on the amount of games purchased

Sony wants to be like Nintendo. Idk what their problem is. I didn't buy Ratchet and Clank for PS5 when it came out because no way I'd spend 70 dollars for this.

So far it has been discounted to 50 dollars for Black Friday. No thanks I will still wait. Maximum I will pay is 35 dollars.

@Radekbejbl1 @UltimateOtaku91 For some reason nobody ever seems to mention that. There's a certain point where a certain optical threshold is crossed and the price looks too high. For all the talk of inflation, pay hasn't kept up with either inflation or cost of living since the 70s. And I'm not sure who thinks they'll just get endless raises for no reason forever faster then the rate of inflation and cost of living expenses. Add in acceleration of gentrification and discretionary expenses have to be continuously pruned back, not increased.

For us, this is a primary hobby. If even those among us can't justify it anymore, including the impoverished staff of video games media, the wide market is going to have an even harder time.

The catch is that the wide market doesn't buy many games. So it's an extra 120 bucks or so total over 7 years. And that's who they really have in mind as the major income source, people that don't buy a lot of games is most of the people that buy games. We enthusiasts just buy less as a result. But that's not putting more money in their pocket, it's just putting less games in ours.

This problem could be better rectified I think with a digital loyalty program of sorts that rewards regular customers and offers value in buying "bulk" as it were. Ironically, though, that's basically exactly what MS is doing..... Yet at greatly reduced cost, partly by eliminating retailer cuts, second hand sales, etc.

@munstre A price increase is almost universally welcomed by businesses selling a product? Who would have guessed ?

people expect more out of games these days graphics , fps , ect ect , not to mention they cost more money then ever to produce high quality games now, and people act surprised they want games to cost 70$?

I'm okay paying money for good games that are feature complete and not rife with microtransactions.

If it helps you Brits feel better my healthcare insurance costs $15,000 per year, and I still have to pay the first $3,000 of expenses each year. So it could be worse. . .

@Jeanhenry Saying its not to do with the exchange rate doesn't make it true. There's a reason that prices didn't change in America or Japan. You might pay £10 more but Sony basically receive the same amount of money at £60 as they uses to receive at £50 at the start of the previous generation when prices were set.

The £60 -> £70 is the relavent price increase across generations.

Pricing discounts are the least of my worries with Sony's first party lineup. If the game is good enough I'll pay full price for it and don't really care about discounts. But I'd like Sony to make first party games that actually interest me before I worry about how much I'm paying for them.

Why is the dollar cheaper than the pound, when the pound is worth more than the dollar?

@B_Lindz You don't have to feel sorry. While it sucks on games, living conditions, social security and healthcare are way better here.
But, the game price situation is them taking advantage of the currency exchange situation. An euro is worth over more than 10% what a dollar is, but they still price them the same.
Actually, i am looking now and battlefield is priced at 80€.

Well... turns out i lied. PS5 games are 80€ and ps4 70€ (i almost always wait for price cuts). I actually tried not to pay atention to it and forgot. It's way worse than i thought.
Of course, it varies from game to game. The switch games are still 60€.
Thinking back, i do remember them hiking prices on the ps4 with the same excuse.

So... yeah, it's getting out of hand on playstation. I imagine Xbox is the same.

Amazon have some very good Black Friday discounts on the Uk. Buy generally Sony can do one with their pricing! $69 or £69. That £69 is the equivalent of $92 when exchange rates are taken into consideration. P**s take!!!

And yet there still will be people defending digital over physical. I get it, there are advantages with digital but what the PS store tells us is is that if all there ever is to buy games is digital, it will be chuffing expensive. No one wants that.

It’s clear though that the price hike is to make up the loss that PS5s are being sold at. But it’s also commendable for a company to value their products and don’t discount them so much, as Nintendo does. My Switch library is worth a lot more than I paid for it, admittedly with some limited editions, than my PS4 library that’s worth half of what I paid, and that’s after a deep discount on all purchases; I never paid more than £30 for a title.

People complaining about Americans getting the same game "cheaper" need to realise that comparing prices between two countries isn't as simple as looking up the exchange rate. I don't pretend to fully understand all the factors that go into regional pricing but for the most part it boils down to "regional affordability". In the most extreme case, games in some Eastern European countries tend to be cheaper (going just on the exchange rate) than the UK or the US - because if they were priced like the UK and US no one would buy them at all. That's why there's a thriving (but morally questionable) grey market for Steam games, buying Steam keys in cheaper countries and selling them to more expensive countries for less than the full price on Steam

Tough one to call. The prices are too high, no doubt. £70 RRP for a video game is wrong. I've gamed since the birth of gaming and remember Atari 2600 games being £25-£30 ...so games have never really been cheap..

I paid £42 new for Forza Horizon 5...Series X exclusive...put that into perspective with PS5 exclusives. Something is wrong with that.

Sony has the best studios no doubt but they need to be careful on that pricing. I know many people who are currently gaming on Xbox and PS5...but they only moved to Xbox this gen and most did this due to Gamepass and prices of games....

Personally I won't buy digital new releases unless I have no choice so Gamepass is a no for me as I will only own my games on disc..

I've never paid no more than £60 for a PS5 game but to be honest they should be no more than £50.

This could explain Sony's jump into the PC market?. If anyone takes note you will see that PC versions of multi plat games are far cheaper than our console versions...

I'm a playstation guy through and through. When the 360 was out.. I think that console had the edge and I spent most of my time there. When the PS4 came on the scene however it became apparent that all the best exclusives for me where there so I skipped Xbox. I've enjoyed Nintendo's first party offerings on my daughter's switch but for me, there isn't enough to keep me entertained all year round.

I'm an early adopter to the PS5 as I sold my PS4 Pro whilst it was worth it's most and figured the PS5 isn't coming down anytime soon.

Anyway bottom line I have bought very little PS5 games because it just too much for me unless I'm 100% really into it. That just hasn't happened yet.

I bought mortal Kombat when I bought the machine as it wasn't silly expensive.

Only PS5 games I have really played is through PS plus. Which for the most part don't really count lol. I really enjoyed maquette though. I have also bought project zero which I'm yet to play, again not exactly pushing the PS5. So I'm mostly playing through my PS4 stuff.

I bought a series S early in the year and I'm honestly struggling to go back at the moment though. There is just so much good content. Sony are going to find this a hard sell. I can't see it looking so good. 🤷

I paid £70 for Returnal, worth every penny in my opinion, as its quickly become one of my favourite games.

@nessisonett Im sorry you are saying PS firstparty titles are not extremely polished?

Ghost of Tsushima Directors Cut is currently up at £34.99 on Amazon UK Black Friday deals. Factor in the current trade in price to CEX once you have finished it at £21.00 . That gives you a figure of £13.99 to play the game through. Bit different to the Digital deal on the Sony Store for us trying to play on a budget.

Physical Disk economics right there at the moment.

@Salt_AU Do they have a lot of tax in Australia or something? One of the smallest countries in Europe the Netherlands pay €99 for a Ultimate edition.

Ill rather have the €70 price point then a day one gold edition but thats me. Sony has very little to no monetization in their games. I would love to see a the price comparison in combination with MT, Gold Editions, Boosters.

Damn, there's some idiots in this comment thread.

I buy all my games physically. They're cheaper when they're new, they're much cheaper when they're older, I can buy copies that have been traded in which are cheaper still and I can trade them in myself to recover costs. They install quicker, I'll always have them even if the server's went offline tomorrow. Most of them get delivered the day before release.

The only upside to buying digitally is that you can don't have to swap the discs out.

There also seem to be people arguing that costs have to go up to support the cost of making high quality games. So answer me this, why are they cheaper on Xbox? Why are they even cheaper still on PC? Is the PlayStation that much harder to develop for?

I love my PlayStation exclusives - I haven't owned an Xbox since the 360 - but I won't pay £70 for them and, fortunately, I don't have to. I'm patient enough to wait till they fall to a reasonable price.

The answer is simple. Stop buying them till they fall in price. To those of you that didn't see this coming and bought a digital only version of the PS5...sell it now and get a disc version. You will recoup your costs if you act quickly.

No they won't, Returnal is 39.99 on Base and Ratchet is 25 quid on Tesco. Try advertising some deals other than Amazon for once.

There is no way I am paying £70 for a game regardless. Sony's first party games are 'good' but certainly not 'better' than the equivalent from other publishers and don't always offer the 'best' value either. R&C is still a 'typical' R&C game - short and fun but nothing really new/radical, Returnal wasn't much better and really divided people etc. Sales figures weren't 'spectacular' for either of these if I recall - considering the number of PS5's sold and 'lack' of many other 'big game' releases this year - Sony relying heavily on paid upgrades to last gen releases to bulk out their line-up (Spider-Man, Ghost of Tsushima, Death Stranding...)

I feel most sorry though for those who prefer to buy Digitally or have no choice because they bought the Discless PS5. They are the ones who are going to be held to Ransom - Pay these absurd prices or 'miss out'. I have the disc version, so at least I can take advantage of retailer competition driving prices down or even the 'Used' market.

I hate to buy used in general because that's not supporting the games industry but I'd rather do that than 'support' this idea that somehow these games are 'superior' and warrant the premium price, where others are offering their games at the 'same' price as expected with 'free' next-gen upgrades (either pre or post launch), and MS (for example) putting theirs on Game Pass on Day 1. Flight Sim & FH5 are amongst the highest rated releases this year and games like Starfield, Elder Scrolls 6, Redfall, Fable, Perfect Dark, Forza Motorsport etc etc as well as numerous 3rd Party games (Stalker2), will be coming day 1 too

Each to their own of course - this is my opinion and fortunately I bought the Disc version PS5 so I would NOT be held to ransom over Sony's exclusives. I also have a Series X with Game Pass Ultimate so I have plenty of 'new' games to play until I find a physical copy at the price I think the game is worth to me - and if that means I have to shop on Ebay to find a 'used' copy, so be it.

Just because I don't think Sony's games are worth the current asking price, doesn't mean others feel the same way. I'd like to think that Sony rethinks their strategy - they have made it clear that GoW:R and GT7 will incur an extra charge for PS5 versions after trying it again with Horizon:Forbidden West (but backtracked after public outcry after going back on their previous comments).

I know that Sony are looking to release more games to PC and if they start to release games within 'months' (instead of years) on PC, the 'Premium' experience is not likely to be on a 'locked' and 'limited' (albeit still a powerful) system. So how they can charge a Premium then for Console players, I don't know.

My strategy is this:

If it's cheap enough, I'll always buy it digital
Otherwise, if I'll likely only play it once, I'll buy physical, and depending on how much I like it, sell it on.
Otherwise, it goes on the wishlist until there's either a good enough sale, or I've run out of stuff to play, in which case I'll go for whatever I most want to play, regardless of price.

This year I've picked up Fallen Order, Borderlands 3 and Hitman (2016) for £10 each, Cyberpunk for £12.50, and the Mafia Trilogy for £15, all off eBay. I've bought a load of digital games on sale, including Hitman 2, and the only game I've paid full price for, was Hitman 3. I ended up re-buying Borderlands 3 as digital, and selling my physical copy for £9, so only £1 lost through impatience, and now I can play it regardless of what's in the disk drive.

As a system, it has worked well, and I've had a lot of games this year for the price of maybe two first party titles. On the other hand, I can easily see myself buying Forbidden West and Ragnarok at full price, because I'm really looking forward to them.

Edit: Partly relevant:

I'm disabled, and swapping the disks is more than a minor inconvenience for me, but I'm also on a fixed income because I can't work

@theheadofabroom
Holy poop. It’s like meeting my twin! My buying habits / rules are the same as yours.

I’m not dropping 70 quid, unless it’s for Ragnarok.

For the last 12 months I’ve been buying the PS4 versions and then using the PS5 free upgrade.

I very, very rarely buy day one. The only time in the last year or so I’ve done it is for RE8 and Guardians of the Galaxy and thankfully those games were ace and easily 8/10’s.

Sony sold 110 million PS4’s and takes a 30% cut of everything sold on the console. They ain’t poor.

@BAMozzy
Spot on view.

@CutchuSlow
I assume tax. Tax in the uk is 20% whereas (I think) in the USA each state has its own purchase / sales tax rate, that seem to sit around 6%.

i bought disc PS5 and ain't used drive once wish id got digital one but had to buy what was there at time so this argument works both ways round it jus depends on use case. no right or wrong answer whatever people on here preach lol

comments on here are like, what? we all have ps5 why do people with disc try to bash digital and same other way round. nothing to do with them and why get so worked up over something doesn't affect them anyway. you tell people what food to buy or where to buy it from? no. so very funny (peculiar) but hope not all comment threads here like this

I've bought less games since the increase. I do buy some of their games day 1 but it comes at the cost of giving up something else I wanted to buy it and I won't pay full price for it either. Lower than £60 is what I've been trying to go for. When I'm done with the game, I'd trade it in and then I will buy it again in the future when it's very cheap. So far I've only done that for Ratchet and Clank so I'd pay the Tesco price or less to get the game for keeps.

The only exception that I'd pay full price for a game is for when I'm buying a collectors edition. I'd have to really want it and need it for my collection to be willing to buy it. And doing so means I've given up a couple other games I would have normally have paid for to get it.

@TheCollector316

Update: if a game is on PS Now, so you show as owning the game and can't actually buy it, the way around this is to go to the PlayStation Store in a browser. There will be a version of the game you can buy there. The consoles and the app don't have an option for you to buy it.

I always remember the PlayStation store having great deals throughout the year.

I have this feeling now that they have an all digital console the deals in the store will get worse since they know those people have no other option other than purchasing through Sony.

It won't matter if the disc version is selling for 20 bucks, they can charge 50 or 60 in the digital storefront and those people have no choice.

I happen to be one of those people lol. I got in the PlayStation store during one of their lotteries and only the digital console was still available so I jumped on it.

If a game is singleplayer I always buy physical and resell it once I get tired of it. I bought Ratchet and Clank along with Returnal full price and then sold each of them for around 55$ when they were maybe a month or so old. So, I usually have around 20$ into new games.

I have NOT played one game worth 70$.

Most reasonable deal is the sale price of GoT:DC to be fair. It's essentially an ultimate edition for 50 bucks. That's not horrible. These other sales though... lol... yeah no.

I get if you could only get a hold of a digital PS5 but if given the choice the $100 savings is not worth it, at all. You can, and I have, easily saved well over $100 on physical editions of games this year alone.

im conflicted with this. i was never a gamer who preordered or got day one releases due skeptism and stinginess and would wait a few months for things to get cheaper.
however that changed during PS4 generation 5 years back, where by default i would preorder every first party PS exclusive...and wasnt disappointed once. which made me more then happy to support Sony at full price.
The quality that they put into their games is undeniable and it stays true going into the PS5 gen.
Your always guareentied quality and with production cost being high, i think 70 dollars is steep, but factors considered, a reasonable price - but im UK based, and we are charged 70 pounds (around 94 dollars) for that same game. not only does it feel frustratingly unfair (and sortve perplexing), but also as a young dad with a mortage, i just cant justify that pricetag, espcially when im getting all kinds of Day One releases on Game Pass via PC for a simple subscription fee.
Its fine, ive just gone back to waiting a little longer to get ahold of PS games - but if they ever see reason and adjust the price to an even playing field across continients, ill go back to preordering without a problem.

Sony: we are making more money off our games than ever before. Last of us 2 made its money back the day it launched.
Also Sony: games are really expensive to make so do you guys mind paying $10 more for them..?

All those folks that bought a digital PS5 have no right to complain. You all knew what you were getting yourselves into.
I haven't paid full price for a game in over 2 years now and don't plan on starting any time soon and no I don't work for GameStop.

As long as GameStop continues to have promos on you can easily make these games a lot cheaper when you pre-order them. You just have to put some time into it and it will pay off.

After my research and time and travel I'm probably playing all the games I want for free so no complaints here

Wow did you really compare PlayStation to Nintendo for pricing against PlayStation!? PlayStation games get discounted WAY better then Nintendo games where launch games still cost $60 and still only get line 25 percent off, I rarely ever bought them at full price and still won't, I'll probably pay a bit more $50 vs $40 (as opposed to $90 vs $80 in Canada) but PlayStation is stilll decent when it comes to quick discounts

Well, if they price themselves out of the casual market, it just means the average person will wait for greatest hits or deep cut type sales. I don't mind paying $70 for a game I might put over 100 hours into, like Tales of Arise but that doesn't mean casual gamers will, especially with inflation eroding most people's discretionary spending. Guess my point is, this will work itself out, if it doesn't set gaming back for years.

@RatmCky Well, I think games like TLOU2 are in a AAA+ type category and fans are going to pay to play it out the gate. It's really a question of how many games are going to fall into that category? I really want to play the new Ratchet and Clank but I'm willing to wait. If God of War Ragnarok came out tomorrow, I'd easily pay the $70. You can't even go out to dinner with drinks for less than that. Inflation is going to price a lot of people out of gaming, the question is what does it do to gaming in the long term?

@ThorsHammer to be fair the 70 dollar price range is PRETAX here and your 94 dollar equivalent already includes VAT (which is also way higher than the taxes we pay here in the USA, the highest states being close to 9%)

Wouldn't the game be closer to 75 equivalent American dollars without VAT?

@rumple1980 I have the digital and I'm definitely not complaining and I knew what I was getting into.

Scarcity is very high, I had the opportunity to snag a digital after many, many failed attempts at securing ANY PS5, and I took it.

I can afford it so I didn't care much. One pro to being all digital is that I won't have to switch out discs just to play a game that is already installed on the system. I always found that absurd.

I can definitely see Sony taking advantage of this new all digital reality for many players however by being a bit more stingy on their titles during sales.

@GreatAuk good point i overlooked about the pretax, thank for the observation. with that said 75 dollars from what i can see is about 57 pounds, which is pretty close to what we payed in the PS4 era (49.99 to 54.99 pounds) for Sony exclusives. i think in the states they had 59.99 to 64.99 dollars as a pretax equivelent back then? but with the PS5 era theyve never made similar adjustments and (correct me if im wrong) have never really justified why. so defintely a valid pointer, the gap is not as large as i originally assumed - but there still is a gap and its enough for me to wait for a discount (e.g i finally picked up R&C Rift Apart on black friday sale for 54.99) whereas before i wouldve preordered sight unseen.

It has been one year and I've yet to see a PSN sale where PS5 exclusives dropped to 50% or less.

So yeah, they are getting stingy, at least for now.
Maybe when PS5 stocks normalize we will see some real discounts.

Sony is under the microscope more then any other company I ever seen, Nintendo gets by charging full price for 10 year old games with minimal upgrades for the Switch and no one says nothing, Sony charge 10 dollars more for top tier expensive to make games everyone loses their minds (see the problem here?)

@JaysonWayne3121 the cost of producing cartridges back then was extremely expensive. To produce a CD was cheaper than a cassette tape. The first CD games should have been cheaper but they weren’t.

I'm sorry but if $10 is make or break then you weren't buying games at $59.99 either.

Awful lot of words when the article needed just the one: Yes.

@johnny30 Just wanted to comment that reading your post about AAA games like Ratchet being disappointing due to lack of length and lack of substantial gameplay, yet you have a reluctance to play Returnal because it’s an “indie developer”… — Buddy, if you want a game that is pretty lengthy, loads of replay value and is the very definition of Gameplay, then you are doing yourself a disservice by overlooking Returnal.

Late to the game on this one, but I am priced out of new games. I would easily have bought both Returnal and Ratchet and Clank day one if not for the price. In fact, I still haven't picked them up.

I have said this before but the extra £20 PS5 tax is completely mad and is slightly ruining the new PS5 for me. It is just a money grab that is not in line with the rest of the industry.

What still bugs me the most is the digital pricing often being more than the physical version. This should be the other way round due to costs associated with physical so I feel like I’m being bent over with digital. Not only that I lose the trade in value with digital and not even that is reflected in digital pricing.

Sony have clearly made moves to prevent their games falling quickly into the bargain bin like they used to. No doubt after watching enviously as Nintendo have always done. Increasing the starting price like this helps that. However it also bodes better for physical as trade in prices remain higher. It’s made physical even more attractive to me as times gone on when I thought they would be enticing me digitally.

@ThorsHammer Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of people from UK and Europe who haven’t really understood the pricing difference. You can’t just do an exchange rate conversion because of the VAT equalizer. Like @GreatAuk says, in the States our sales tax is added afterward and is also much lower because of less centralized social services, etc. Taking all that into consideration, all through the PS3 and PS4 eras I think it looks like Americans have been the ones shouldering the heavier load price-wise and the UK/Europe has had things a little cheaper in times past. Now it seems it’s flipped. I think the consoles also end up still being cheaper for you all too, once you subtract VAT.
Sony has no control over what the government adds to the price, only what they get to take back as compensation. So you have to look at it from their perspective of what their profit is on a sale and subtract what goes to the government. I think in times past they were able to take more of a loss in UK/Europe in order to build market share, but now it’s the U.S. which might be a bigger battleground with Microsoft so they have to keep prices a little cheaper over here. I’m just speculating though.

Before PS5 was released, deluxe editions on PS4 were around 80€, and regular AAA titles were 59,99€. Now the standard PS5 game cost's around 80€, and at a discount, it is 50-60€.

@auditor01 We don't need to care or consider inflation. My expenses are also higher. Food costs more, bills, gas and all other stuff you can imagine are more expensive. But my salary is the same as before Kovid19. So most of us have LESS money than two years ago. Just calculate simple stuff, for example, in 2019. you could buy xx liters of gas, and now you can buy 50% less for the same salary (it applies in most countries, especially for daily expenses). On the other side is a company with billions of dollars in profit... If it is just a game price I would be ok with that, but at this "unusual" time when everything is more expensive, they should be more considerate to their customers. In the end, if their games are 60€ like before, more people would buy them, and they would get the same amount of money. But with a difference that more players could access the games faster. Check the votes. It shows that 60-70% of players delayed purchases because of the higher prices. Also note that God of war, Uncharted 4, and Ratchet and Clank were very accessible during the PS4 era, most of the time prices were around 10-30 USD.

@Th3solution correct theres lots of confusion about international pricing. thats an intresting way to look at it, i never assumed it was imbalanced the other way round last gen, if thats the case, then i feel its fair to switch it around, but its strange that Sony is the only one to do it. all PS5 third-party and most second-party are still 49.99 to 54.99 in price on launch. Regardless, even if it feels less confusingly lopsided for UK gamers, just on a personal front i cant justify (or afford) shelling out 70 bucks for one game, espcially when that will be cheaper in 2 months. i am happy to see others can though and Sony is supported by several gamers for the high quality they put out.

@auditor01 Do you have to do that for every sale? That's crazy. Why aren't taxes simply added before the sale?

@Jammsbro yeah it's every purchase. There's usually just a flat sales tax applied when you checkout for any purchase.