Soapbox: PS5 Must Introduce Price Parity Across Regional PSN Stores

Rather than price parity, I want regional pricing. Gears 5 and control is $60 on steam and epic games store usa but in my country its only about $20. In the other hand, digital psn games price in my country is $60, same as usa.

There's no reason for an all digital future. I'm all for improving services that deliver digital copies of games, but people want to buy games physically should have the choice.

@JoeBlogs digital normally costs more because they have a monopoly. Physical stores have to cut their prices to compete with the convenience of digital, as well as Amazon and a dozen other retailers.

I love having a physical collection, but I'm coming to accept that from PS4 onwards they are mostly resellable license keys in nice boxes.

Other than remasters and GOTY-type reissues, more and more discs contain merely buggy and/or empty launch versions, which often barely even work without access to a server anyway. So many games won't work once the servers are taken down, so the physical version doesn't even preserve the game like we feel it should.
I'd begrudgingly accept an all digital future, as long as there was some form of competion between retailers, like with PC.

i'll be happy if the console releases worldwide at the same date for ones.

tbh price differences never bothered me that much,it's the release date differences of old that get on my nerves. remember the old days when europe often had to wait a couple weeks to even months for a game to release when the US already had it? now that was some cr*p. shame it still happens with main console releases.

i know it's not always in sony's control just like the pricing issue you write about but still. better preperation and communication would go a long way to ensure major markets like the US and western europe and even japan get the stuff at the same time without delays.

Thought this would be about physical and digital being the same price.

As physical is nearly always cheaper than digital.

The regional thing is a good idea but you've got different taxes and wages along with the value of money. If you even look at the basic minimum wage in UK and Australia, it's miles different same with the cost of a game but 5.5hrs work would buy that same game in both countries.

That if Australia started paying $50 for a game, then surely we're then getting screwed more in the UK.

It’s worth noting that because physical discs are region free if the is too much price disparit greymarket retailers will import from other regions. Digital is different as the prices on other region stores aren’t available.

Yeah, the pricing seems pretty inconsistent and at times unfair. I hear games are brutally expensive in Brazil. Something to do with tariffs. I’m not sure how that’s affected by digital vs physical. Maybe someone from Brazil can inform me if they are getting price gouged.

The only reason I buy digital atm, is either it's cheaper in a sale than a shop or just for the sheer fact I just make a spur of the moment decision on the spot to buy a new game digital. But I do like to trade my games in once finished or platinumed the issue with digital is cant trade towards another game so I'd rather have the option to buy on disc to save me money in the future, one day it will be all digital but I hope not as it's not always possible to have money to buy the amount of games I like 😃

no offense, but you've broken a fairly complex topic into trivialities. prices are not comparable simply by converting one currency to another. it's not how it works. you might as well ask how many big macs does it cost?.

also, the US prices are exclusive of sales tax. you should really be comparing £50 (CoD's £59.99 exclusive of VAT) with $60 (which is roughly £47 at today's rate of 77.5p). so the difference is nowhere near as exaggerated as you make out.

i honestly would not be surprised if game prices are hiked again in the UK for PS5/Xb2. i have never bought a PS4 game on PSN that exists on disc format, i don't expect that to change for PS5.

@leucocyte yep sort what I about wages, looking at USA, UK and Canada a game would cost about 15 Big Mac's in each country

@leucocyte VAT is addressed in the article.

I'm really not understanding what you're complaining about. I guess just wait for a sale. I hate it when a game is cheaper on disc new than digital. That's a much bigger issue in my opinion.

On the other hand, try buying Sniper Elite 3 and Zombie Army Trilogy together for £7, as physical copies, new or second hand. If you're willing to wait a while the digital prices can be amazing. It's swings and roundabouts. I only buy a few games on release but don't mind paying that little extra so I don't have to wait. The rest I get later far cheaper than physical stores can manage.

As someone with no real knowledge about how pricing works (or has worked previously) in markets outside of the US, how did it used to work before Sony changed it? Did they periodically adjust prices for changes in exchange rates, or did each country have their own set price, much like that $59.99 price point in the US?

The reason I ask is that my other passion (other than gaming) is financial markets, and I can't envision it being easy for even a company as large as Sony to consistently keep changing foreign prices (assuming the US price point of 59.99 USD is used as their "base" price) to ensure that customers in all countries are paying the equivalent of that "base" price with how often exchange rates fluctuate (which is virtually 24/7 on weekdays, as FX markets don't really close during the week like equity markets do).

@Th3solution i have a friend on psn from brazil and he has told me about how much the games cost. I cant remember an exact number, but they are quite a bit higher.

Its always baffled me how new release games are more expensive as a download when, as mentioned, there is no middle man and no cost involved in the making the disc/packaging. I do buy digital when there are good offers on or when I can get my hands on some PSN vouchers but if buying a new release I always go for disc as it is a good amount cheaper. I'd buy digital always if the prices weren't hiked up.

I guess I am a rare breed... I don't preorder. And wait for atleast 60% discount on the playation store before I buy any game.. Except some.. Like witcher 3..

@ellsworth004 most of the new AAA here cost R$250 (US$60) but they can cost a little more than that, around R$300 (US$71). A new PS4 costs around R$1500 (US$356) and 12 month PS Plus subscription costs R$150 (US$36).
The biggest problem here is that the purchasing power here is horribe. The minimum wage here is less than R$1000 (US$240).

I've never paid full price for any game because of this it has given me a backlog so when a title that want is next on my list been slashed in price so it's a win win for me. I've always said I won't pay full price because the prices are way to high especially on the store how can a digital product be more. Yes the 3rd party pubs want a slice but I also think the UK government also taxes digital sales as well

I buy mainly digitally these days but I get my PSN credit from CD keys so that it doesn't work out too bad. Also I only tend to get Sony's exclusives at launch and maybe a couple of others, so more often than not buy most games in a sale

And why can't you buy Baldurs Gate for digital.. On ps4?!

I buy 100% physical first. But because of Digital only, Games that are no longer sold Physical, low sale prices of old games, And PS-Plus games, I own more Digital then Physical games.

I have always thought when you figure exchange rate minus Tax or any other added fee's the price was similar across the world now.

I buy physical due to it mostly being the cheaper option.
The fact that I only have 70 Gig a month daytime download via satellite is also a big factor.

I buy mainly physical and rarely at release. RD2, fractured but whole (preorder bonus of stick of truth) and DS are the only ps4 games I have bought at launch. I payed 42 quid of ac odessey, spiderman and hzd this week and I'll probably get two games from the trade in price (nowt flashy, maybe prey and alien isolation). If the value doesn't fit for you, dont buy it!

@hoffa007 I'm pretty much the same, although I don't tend to sell the games on as I like keeping the discs, whether they are unpatched or not. People complaining about digital pricing - yes it's unfair and often much higher than physical, but it also means the physical market is still alive and we at least have some ownership of our titles. All digital would be ok with me if we always have access to the games, but there will always be an expiry date to which we are not privy. I don't use Steam but as far as my knowledge of it is concerned, Valve are at least keeping the games on their servers and accessible and have been for years. The issue with consoles is when everyone moves on to the next generation, the demand for the previous drops so low that the platform holder switches off servers and makes the games no longer downloadable.

just make a u.s. account and stop cryin for ffs

I always prefer physical games if there is no update but that's rarely the case now. I miss those old days. I wish Sony would release updatable cartridges or something that you can load the entire updated game on and save it as a physical copy. I would love that even if it costs more.

I understand your troubles, Liam. But I pray that price parity does not happen across regions. You see, in Latin America prices are high for the average salary, but if you translate to US dollars it's probably cheaper than in US. Having separate price tags allow companies to adapt to each market, specially in emergent countries.

@Cutmastavictory isn't that the point of the article- that he wants the price of digital games to be more reflective of the generally cheaper asking price for physical copies, and I'm inclined to agree. While I also understand that games are no longer perfect upon release, due to the nature of connectivity- as opposed to when a game was either working or broken, and there was no chance of a patch- so these days, there's less reason for physical copies at all, but if the push is being made to digital, the prices should drop to compensate.

@ellsworth004 we have a South American hombre amongst us. @DerMeister how much are your games mate?

No idea why the ff7 remake costing £59.99 is a big unforseen moment. As long as it is free from micros I'm a happy bunny.

Years in the making and a twice in a lifetime experience! It's a fair price to pay.

Call of Duty. Errr not so much.

Cyberpunk at £54.99. Again as long as the SP has hours upon hours worth of content, it's a bargain. Brand new, fresh and a big risk for the developers - no complaints here.

I get Liams point but with economics we pay what the publishers can sell it for. I would pay £60 happily for either of those games.

Unfortunately it will stay like this untill physical stores like game , target, etc die out. The reason the prices are so high is to save the high street. I only buy digital if theres a sale, split the cost with my best friend for gameshare or its only available digital

Until you pay either Canadian or Australian prices, the Brits have no right to complain at all...

@vhsodre minimum wage R$1000, is that weekly?

All digital future means flash sales aside, prices will be way hiked up. This will a small issue in comparison. Games that should be $20 if we had physical will only be available for $60. All digital is bad news.

I only buy digital when the price is cheaper oøthan Psychical or the Pre-order reward is superior compare to the Psychical

This Liam supports it also.

Oh, my name is down as oldschool1987

I, too, am a Liam lol

This is why i created a US Psn account because the UK "deals" are pathetic.

Days gone was £35 on black friday but $20 in America which was about £15 for me.

Agree with the article 100%. Hope it changes on PS5

@themcnoisy Know I'm late. Not sure how much help I can be here but I'll give a crack at it.

New games are generally $60USD (or $59.99) at release, without tax. I know not every state has the same tax rate, but I couldn't tell you anything else about that. I live in Texas, and looking at my receipts, I pay 8.250% more than list price. I bought Dragon Ball FighterZ physically full price, and the state tax brought it up by $4.95, leaving the price at $64.94. Almost $5 more. Digitally, taxes tend to change- I bought FF8 Remastered, which is $19.99, but I was only taxed an extra $1.65, paying $21.64. Last year I also got Under Night In-Birth at $24.99, but I was taxed $2.06, paying $27.05. If there's an inaccuracy, feel free to correct me, because I'm too dumb to math this stuff.

It's down to all the wise a***s getting together with buddies and splitting the cost of the games digitally. Sony see them as sales regardless and it does nothing to help the overall problem. It's annoyed me from day one with ps4 store purchases.

In 2017 I paid €6 in The BR XBox store for ReCore, in the remaining stores was arround €20 to €50. I don’t think this is fair. For me it was excellent but for others....

I suppose volume has a lot to do with it too. UK sales compared to the US will be hugely different. However counting the whole of the EU it is probably a bit closer.
What frustrates me is the unavailability of certain titles here in the UK.
Why can buy Bombjack from the Jap store but not the UK one?
For me that's just as bad.

Economies are different in every country. Therefore pricing should vary. If you want parity that means poorer regions will end up be charged more for games.

If you want to buy items from a different store all you have to do is setup an account for that country and get credit. There are not many regions where this can not be done.

I totally agree with you on this one.

@LiamCroft part of the issue with Digital is there is no competition, a physical version of a game could be available in may different places and as such it drags down the price because a store wants you to buy from them and not a competitor where as Digital you only have one place

BUT i also feel your forgetting one very important thing, the value of the pound, One Pound doesn't equal One Dollar and as such you can't expect us to pay the same price as Americans do for the same game (also $59.99 equals £46.19 not $43 as it $1.30 to the £) now adding in the 20% VAT that comes to £55.43p (rounded up) so to pay £59.99 means we are paying an extra £4.56p in the grand scheme of things which lets be honest is nothing

as for what that extra £4.56p is for i have no idea but it's no where near as bad as your making it out to be

As has been commented so many times before, it shouldn't cost more to buy a digital download copy of a game than to distribute blu-ray discs and send them via the post from a well known online retailer. But it does - often by up to £20 - because the prices on the PS store are a rip off. I only buy online when something's in a sale.

@LiamCroft There's a site called PSN4.com that highlights this perfectly. At one point, you could get brand new releases for 23 quid by setting up an Indonesian account and using a fee-free card. Sony have now blocked that little trick though.

To be honest, as nice as parity would be, i dont expect this anytime soon, especially with complications as referenced in terms of taxes, fees etc...

I remember paying £59.99 for a Jap import version of Streetfighter Zero 2 on Saturn in 1996, yet a current PS4 game from my own region thats digital and has no middle man costs the same..

On one hand it is rediculous, especially when comparing to Steam pricing and so on, but then on the other, considering game pricing has not escalated too much since my 23 year old example above , I think we also have to feel somewhat fortunate in that respect too.

Most players that have knowledge of how this pricing works, will usually find a work around, i have an American and Japanese account with pricing in mind, as this tends to be better (especially in the US Store). If this wasnt the case, I'd probably have stayed physical.

Pretty much only digital for me. Physical prices and sales are usually s*** compared to the digital store, but it seems to be different depending on country.

_{Language please! - Quintumply}

I would happily go all digital but the price difference is huge. I got RDR2 on release day for £38 but this was a physical disc. If I had bought this in the psn store I would've paid £59.99. Same with COD MW. I got this the day of release from Argos/Sainsburys and I paid £45 but if I bought it on psn again it would've been £59.99. Until the prices come down on digital, I will buy physical. I do buy digital during sales etc but never new games.

if you think the digitally future is going to be cheaper than physical media we have now, then you are blind. because its not gonna happen, digital is gonna be more expensive, that is the way it goes. so be thankful for the cheaper physical media and support it. when the digitally future happen for full, there is no way back.

If you want to speed their digital agenda tough, it's good you need to pay extra to buy something you never own. Talk about turkeys voting for Christmas...

Has always been easy to have multiple account regions and buy regional cards online. Has allowed me to build a massive collection of digital games at very low prices by shopping each region and finding incredible deals.

Insofar as AAA/simultaneous physical/digital launches go I'd say physical will always have a price advantage so long as their reliant on bricks & mortar retail selling the majority their consoles.
That said,I would like to see more digital storefront parity btwn the US & EU (Aussie user here),storefront regions.
Recent Black Friday sale & now the Xmas one have seen differences in terms of content (ie:PS3/Vita discounts on the US store only),& better discounts/prices on the US store recently with the Black Friday specials vs the EU storefront.
The EU storefront runs consistently late behind both the US PSN & Eshop/XB storefronts on new releases esp. the indie titles. (Worldwide)
Shouldn't have to create a US account because of the storefront we normally access can't get its act together! We keep being told the EU region was the stronghold last gen/this gen-start treating its customers better then!

"I adore pre-loading and I love pressing play as soon as the clock strikes midnight"

I like getting my physical copies a day or so early and playing while all you digital-only peasants are sat there clock-watching. The fact I got it £10-£15 cheaper just makes it sweeter. 😜🤣

@LiamCroft "Launching on the US PSN Store at $59.99 excluding VAT, that roughly converts into £43 — meaning I had to pay an extra £17 to gain access to exactly the same product"

your maths is a mile off. $60 is about £47. you paid £50 plus an extra £10 in tax. the difference is £3, not £17 when VAT is accounted for.

@ellsworth004 monthly.

@REALROBLAW you can already do that- buy digital then download to an external hard drive. Then download to other drives and create as many backups as you see fit. Other than the titles that need always-online access to a server that will one day shut down, e.g Anthem, you should be able to play the games for as long as your console lives.

I agree with this article so much. I only get certain games as physical copies if I really like it and mainly if it's a ps4 exclusive plus I get it as a steel book case edition if I can. Space is also a HUGE factor as well.
Side note here's to hoping the small physical collection of ps3 games I have will be backwards compatable too

@BarefootBowser It's already happened digitally. It's also a publisher thing, not just necessarily a Sony, MS, and Nintendo thing.
AC: Origins regular digital price: $60
https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP0001-CUSA05855_00-GAMEACEMPIRE0000?emcid=se-pi-225351
AC: Origins can be physically bought regularly for $15
https://www.gamestop.com/video-games/playstation-4/games/products/assassins-creed-origins/10149554.html

This is what an all digital future looks like. The current flash sale for it is what it can always be bought for physically.

@BarefootBowser Yes, but it needs a “sale” to be that price. It’s already “75% off” all the time physically. It’s not even a sale, it’s the price it should I’ve already been. A good sale would’ve been $5 or $10. Not the regular physical price for a limited time. I see no reason for it to change all of a sudden if we go all digital. With no stores to compete with each other, there’s no reason for them to. No competition means a monopoly, and that never ends well for the consumers. I could go through countless games that are overpriced digitally, absolutely countless.

@BarefootBowser physical competition is the reason. And here’s the thing, I don’t think Sony controls the price, I’m pretty sure the publisher does. If they don’t compete now digitally why would they later? Stores competing selling the same game is what lowers them. The used market being gone is also a price hike in of itself.
I don’t think that prices will be higher at the start, so much as they won’t lower like should with time.

@ThroughTheIris56 No. It's pointless.

Umm, I'm pretty sure the reason why it costs more around here, in like Europe, is because of taxes. - And yea, they do the blunt thing of... when it's 60 USD, it's 60 GBP or EUR, which yet again makes Pounds a little more than Euros even. But it's the taxes, man...

That doesn't mean I agree with how they handle it, this has always annoyed me. But for some reason they can just sell things for a lot less in the US. It's probably the market and economy there, paired with, again, the taxes around here.

And by the way, it's not just PlayStation-games; The exact same thing happens on Steam. A 60 Dollar game on Steam in the US is a 60 Euro/Pound game on Steam there. Which is also bull, but then there are loads more sales there, which I always take advantage of.

And also; I agree with going all-digital, because discs are annoying and pointless and any games after about 2008 have no business being on a disc anymore. Everything since the PS3 could've been digital-only considering how it had (and still has) a digital store.

I actually JUST got a PlayStation 4, because I never got to it and I also wanted to get it for a lower price, and I always had it in mind to make a last physical collection of the few games I wanted to get for it. - But then I suddenly changed my mind and thought it was stupid to mess around with discs just to have a collection to look at. I'll get some posters or figures if I want physical things of games to look at.

More reasons that physical copies don't make sense are the fact that part of the game is downloaded anyway, because it either doesn't fit on the disc or there is some form of update, including single-player games. So basically the data on the disc is outdated anyway (which also shows people's idea of "owning the game because you have it physically" is flawed) and makes it all convoluted.

I don't want it anymore and I kind of wish the PS5 won't have a disc-drive or will (eventually) offer a version without a drive.
Well, of course there's things like Blu-rays, and I'm still about that because streaming just doesn't deliver the same data and thus same quality. But not necessarily everyone will also use the console to watch movies, so I still think there should be a disc-less version.

Unfortunately, I chose to get the special edition sets of 'Uncharted 4' and 'The Last of Us II', so I'll have to mess around with sóme discs for the PS4. But I really wish they had already implemented a solution for that. Something like that you could use your disc to grab a digital download license that "un-requires" the disc. Even thát would be a more acceptable way to go about physical copies for the PlayStation 5. Make it so you "authorize" the digital version with the disc and then "unauthorize" the license (and effectively lose it) before you sell it. And cheating by leaving it active on your system/account shouldn't work because the next owner would find out it doesn't work on theirs. - It would probably cause a lot of issues with people trying to either just pull that trick/scam or actually forgetting it. But still, I want the option to have it all-digital just as much as some people still insist on a physical copy, even if I get put up with a physical copy when I buy some collector's edition set. I'm not going to "double dip", especially not spitting out wads of money on pre-orders.

@MicHaeL_MonStaR Not really sure how giving people options is pointless...

@BarefootBowser @BarefootBowser basically all of them if I can wish big lol.
I'd really like to be able to play my small physical collection of ps3 games that are nostalgic to me and I have a ton digitally that would be awesome of they got the "X" treatment and were raised in resolution. Since using my Pro going back to a 720p game is pretty rough and the ps3 had ALLOT of screen tearing issues.
If sony doesn't announce something for backwards compatability like the "X" has then that may be the reason I get an X.
Just imagine - splinter cell hd collection, the darkness 1 & 2, mgs 1-4, eternal sonata, castlevania series, spec ops: the line, kingdoms of angular, alice madness returns, star wars force Unleashed 1 & 2 and so much more uprezed and enhanced to 4k 60 by the power of the PS5. I'd be in heaven lol