PS5 Price May Dip Below $400, Analyst Speculates

Well, if the Japanese giant actually does offer the PS5 Digital Edition below 400$ I just might try to get it day one. Fingers crossed!

Im not really concerned about the price, I just want one day one.

The further below $400 they go, the stronger their case of 'it's almost the same price as Series S for a much better machine" becomes. Now if we can get them to bundle PS Now and PS Plus together into one package.

Nah, That would be a huge loss, and aren't they already selling at a loss per console? 499$ and 399$ for Disc and DE is already a fine price.

But if Sony is really trying to go all-in, this really shows that they aren't playing around this gen

Surely not. I mean, I’d love that but there’s surely no way it could be that low.

I think their plan would have been £/$499 for the disc console, and £/$449 for that digital, but it would not surprise me if after the S reveal they take a hit and drop the digital to £/$399.

@kappasig390 My ideal scenario for pricing is exactly the same. If they are going to be the same or above Series X, i really need that PS Now bundled in with PS Plus as a way of making it worth it for a launch or close to launch purchase. Fingers and other extremities are crossed.

If it's €450 or lower for the optical disc version, I'll crap my pants.

I dont care how much the console is.......As long as the console isnt more than $500 I am good to go on preordering.
If its cheaper then..... thats just a bonus

They could go really aggressive with the digital edition PS5, it locks the customer in to buying from PSN, even if you buy your codes from other retailers the cut for Sony is still higher than physical, it also rules the customer out of the used market.

It all depends on how long term Sony are thinking, if they are willing to play the long game then I could see the £449/£349... or even (and this is pipedream territory) £399/349

Let's just say that I wouldn't mind it!

@OmegaStriver - you and me both. just give me a preorder!!! LOL

The one thing im wondering about is if they keep to the 1 Dollar for 1 whatever currency, it was a bit of a shock to see MS not do this with their next gen pricing.

$450 or $500, I'm all ready to throw my pre-order down.

@nessisonett I've said elsewhere on here that it's possible. Look, rumoured costs at the start of the year places the PS5 bill to manufacture at around $450's or $428's, those prices arguably represent the two SKU's, but let's look at Sony's recent history in launch prices:

PS4 $399.99 - cost of manufacture at launch $438's

PS4 Pro $399.99 - cost of manufacture at launch $450's

PSVR $399.99 - cost of manufacture varies, but let's take the $432 figure because it is lowest.

Looks to me like Sony at launch are willing to eat considerable losses. So does the rumoured PS5 costs fall outside of those ranges above? I don't think they do. Now, if the latest Bloomberg rumours are true they might blow those production costs out of the water, right? But conversely if the rumours are false, and they've upped their manufacturing runs that'll reduce costs significantly too. So I could see a scenario where Sony do dip below $399.99 for the Digital Edition, even if I seriously doubt they would, because I don't think they need too.

There are so many variables in play that its impossible for us to do anything but speculate, but it is possible, it just depends on what Sony imagines is the near-future of the console.

For example imagine the system sold for $500 and cost $550 and next year the price of the components drops by $50 but the price remains the same (and then $50 the next year). They would just need to hold that $500 consumer price (or close to it) long enough to make the initial loss break even. This still leaves the software sales as pure profit.

The more of a hit they take on the initial cost, the longer they have to hold that initial price to break even (or at least, slow the price drops). They likely don't want to make up too much of the cost in software sales, but the hardware itself can pay for the initial costs if it sells well enough that they don't need to quickly lower the systems price.

i think the price will be 499 and 399. with these types of rumors, by tomorrow, sony will be selling the ps5 for 100 dollars. LOL

@thedevilsjester it's already been reported it cost 450 dollars to make.

Microsoft looks really solid this next gen. I am kinda jealous of their game pass at the moment , hope Sony could make up some drastic changes to ps plus too. It is super outdated and need changes

@TheAdza - i don't. i expect demon souls, spiderman bugsnax to be at launch. i'll also be playing GoT again plus that free dlc they have coming - and i want to play LoU2 on ps5 (along with quite a few other ps4 games i own).

@eddie429 I was using arbitrary numbers to illustrate that its possible to make the costs back if the market allows.

Also (just a general comment) "to make" doesn't mean "to sell", not only do they have to roll advertising into those costs (and R&D) but Amazon, GameStop, etc... need their cut so even if they sold it MSRP at $500 and built it at $450 they are still taking a huge hit.

Besides price I need to know why this new generation gets a price jump because besides speed I don’t see what’s the difference between PS4 and PS5, most of the games they have show look like PS4 games so hopefully they clear all this tomorrow

One model has to be cheaper than its Xbox counterpart. If not, Sony really needs to bring out big guns this time around.

I'm talking about pulling all the stops and going the extra mile. I'm talking about, y'know, actual exclusives - as in, first-party IPs. Funding a new Wipeout, Parappa The Rapper, Sly or Jak and Daxter game would get Sony much less hate than, say, making sure the Xbox version of Marvel's Avengers has less content for the same price.

Sure but enough with this 'had to cut production' crap the guy pulled out some random 15million number from his ....hat.

£400 for a disc drive version if its true will see this completely sell out at Christmas!!!

@Wake13 explain how they're selling at a "huge loss" - it's been reported that the box costs 450 to make.
https://www.inverse.com/gaming/ps5-price-digital-edition-standard-explained#:~:text=Back%20in%20February%2C%20Bloomberg%20reported,Sony%20uncomfortably%20close%20

With the exception of Nintendo, because they produce their hardware so cheap, console hardware always, always, always sells at a loss. They'll make that loss up in services and 1st party title sales. The all digital edition especially is going to make up for the loss because everything has to be bought through the PSN, so Sony gets that 30% cut of every 3rd party game sold.

The question is how much of a loss they're willing to take.

If ps5 price is below $400, I predict this fall will be really really hard for gamers to get a ps5

@AlexSora89 PlayStation already has a number of first party exclusives already announced, with more to come no doubt.

@thedevilsjester but they're hits they've been willing to take before. Just looked at costs for their other home consoles cost of manufacture at launch:

PS1 $299.99 - cost of manufacture at launch $380''s

PS2 $299.99 - cost of manufacture at launch $372's

PS3 $599.99 - cost of manufacture at launch $840's

The idea that Sony aren't willing to eat HUGE upfront costs on their console hardware at launch seems bizarre to me. All of their divisions are profitable right now and have no debts to service, and the PlayStation division is in seriously rude health after the success of PS4 and their first party studio games selling really, really well. We now know their SSD controller they developed with Marvell is indeed heading for enterprise servers, and maybe even very high end PC SSDs, so that's another revenue stream for them from their R&D investments. I'm painting the best possible picture here I know, and I still expect the price to be $499.99 and $399.99, but mostly to temper expectations.

That would be incredible and huge blow to MS but it just feels too ideal for a consumer. Then again Sony were clearly waiting for MS to announce their price first so maybe charging less then MS was always the plan.

@wiiware they will be nearly impossible to get lol, most of us will be getting them in the spring probably

@thedevilsjester - i understand the extra costs. but sony doesn't operate in a bubble. every other company that rolls out new hardware has those costs as well. so, as far as where the black and red liines are determined, those are determined by "cost to make" vs "retail price".
i wasn't trying to argue with you - your comment didn't say anything about the console costing 450 to make so i was just throwing that out there. i (along with many others) fully believe the price will be 499/399. and, i don't see that price dropping for quite a while.

Well since XBOX announced the prices of their upcoming consoles Sony may announce a lower price to attract more customers.

This is what I have been saying

$449 to beat the X
$399 to communicate clearly that the S is not in the same league as the digital PS5

Okay kinda clickbait-ish as the article explains the analyst is talking about the discless version going below 400, probably to $399, which is about what everyone has been expecting anyway.

Apparently the one with the disc will be at or close to $500, which again, everyone was already predicting.

There's no "aggressive response to Microsoft" here. These are the same prices we've been batting around for months.

@SirAngry I’d add they were also willing to take those hits when their main revenue income would be a £40 game, now its services and micro transactions getting the unit into houses is potential worth that hit more.

$400 no chance

Sony won't under cut MS on price because they simply don't have to.

399 digital, 499 base PS5. I'm calling it now and I'll be here tomorrow live in chat to thank you all for believing me.

considering all of the articles in here about how the money is really coming from the playstation store, etc., they might give away the console and still make it out ok.
would expect to try to sell at the same price or 50€ less than the xbox, so the rumor seems coherent to me

@SirAngry I don't disagree. My whole point was that its possible for them to eat costs and keep the price relatively stable for awhile and make up those costs without it dipping into other revenue streams. Its obviously a lot more complex than that, with many partnerships and deals that we will never hear about on our end that could make it more palatable for them.

@eddie429 Gotcha.

@Robinsad they're also coming off the back of the PS4, which has been insanely successful. It has the highest software attachment rate of any previous console. It has been an utter beast of a system. Thing is? Demand for the PS5 is ridiculously high, so high I don't think Sony have to go aggressive on price, they could shove the PS5 SE out the door for $499.99 and the PS5 DE out the door for $449.99 and I think the market would go "yeah, OK". I guess it all depends on what their goals really are as a corporation / platform holder. It's all guesswork and speculation at this point, and we'll all know soon enough. Signing off for now as I have emails to answer.

£300 for PS5 Digital.

I think $500/$400 is probably spot on. However, if they want to be aggressive about transitioning people to digital and away from physical, imagine the base model is $450-$500 and the digital comes in at $300-$350. The mid-lifecycle refresh could be an all digital Pro. If they can get the majority of people onto digital editions by the end of PS5's lifecycle, the PS6 probably won't have physical as an option.

The ps5 digital version sounds like it'll be more powerful than the xbox series s.

I’ve been saying £449 and £349 since the reveal. But I’m not sure if it’s my head or my heart doing the talking.

Doubt it but I wouldn't complain lol. Will be so glad when we get the info and this speculation game is over with!

@Peach64 There's no way they'd have (at least originally before adjusting prices to react to XSeS) intended a $50 split for digital. That makes digital unattractive and low value compared to the "full size" model.

Sony wants you to buy the digital version. They don't want anyone at all to buy the disc version. They're making it because the market demands it for a variety of reasons, but if they had their choice the digital is the only model that would exist (and next gen, probably will be.) There's substantially more profit in games sales for them on digital units because they cut out the middle men. Manufacturing, distribution, wholesaler, retailer. The wholesale price they get per copy of the game is significantly less after all those cuts - they pocket all of that on digital sales. The real price difference between the physical and digital versions, a disc drive, the IO to support it, and a different, large molded plastic is probably $10 to $15 tops. If that. But the value to Sony of the digital version over the course of 5 years is considerably more than $50 in terms of your game sales. And re-buying any physical BC games you want digitally is a Nintendo-style cheap short-term revenue boost.

Thus, they need the pricing to convince you what you really want is the digital version, because what they really want you do is buy that one. $50 isn't going to cut it. For less than the price of a new game, you get a disc drive and the ability to hand those hundreds of dollars to some random dude on eBay instead of them. They want to make it an "offer you can't refuse."

And you can bet during launch, digital is going to be at least somewhat more available than the disc model. Because, it's a launch, and you want a PS5....so people will buy whichever one is there, and they'll make sure that's the digital one they want you to buy. They'll be making more of those. Considerably more.

Now after adjusting prices for S.....I can see what you say being true. A short term win at a long term severe cost to their plans. Drop the disc price by $50, but leave the digital model price the same as planned because they just can't cut any lower. If they do that, and keep a $50 spread, digital adoption won't be anywhere near what they're hoping. They might be forced to do it, now. But that's going to hurt their overall financial plan with digital conversion (but could pay off for us in the form of more/better sales in the long term.)

Meanwhile as the budget king, MS gets a very big conversion to digital. But it's not nearly as big a deal for them, because their ecosystem was already digital focused, and their customers were generally all digital more readily than Sony's, so it's more status-quo for them than a win in conversion.

That would be silly. Why push Microsoft into a corner and prompt a price war. This will do neither company good. $400 is a very competitive price over Series S while Sony could choose to undercut Series X by about $50.

It's all about the ecosystem and digital store front. That's where the real money is.

'may' 'speculate' hmmm,from the same firm that try to put a wet towel over the hype by this statement and the other lie that 50% of the PS5 chip's are defected..
Why do Push Square write anything from Blomberg, the company that raise M$ to the skies and routinely lies about most PS 'news' ?!
🤔😵☹️
In the reality I live in, PS should be raised to the sky and M$ should be held accounted for their propaganda and lies..

My point is, why do they say such a low price from Playstation if not to put pressure on them?

After one trillion speculations from useless analysts, one is bound to be right. I wouldn't mind a cheaper price than everybody expects. And if it's £400 or less, I might get earlier

I'm guessing £489 Disc £449 Digital

@themightyant
That would be similar to xbox X pricing right?
$399, $499 =
£349, £449
What I said a while ago and hoping for actually £399 for PS5 disc

I really hope Sony avoids a price war with Microsoft. MSFT is a huge corporation far bigger than Sony. As of today MSFT market cap is $1.57 Trillion.

Sony sold the PS4 and PS4 Pro at launch at a loss. They are known to be aggressive in pricing and want to win period. I am expecting they go all in and Physical $449 and Digital $349 and target the marketing to the Series being cheap but weaker, while their digital console is the same power as physical

I'm glad Sony have waited to announce prices after Microsoft. This gives them the chance to undercut them. Surely it would be financially viable to do that given the profits they would have made from the PS4. I can't imagine it would be too much of a negative at the beginning of a console generation.

I'm expecting a price of around $650-$699 for the disc model here in the land down under.

I think $450 sounds reasonable. I don’t see $350 for
Digital though. $380 at the lowest. Even then, though, I don’t know.

I mean probably

@Jarobusa $1.57 Trillion........No wonder Gates thinks he is a Doctor.

400$ will be amazing .if they can do it like ps4 also.but either way ps5 will still destroy x box.just like my Pittsburgh Steelers destroy ny giants yesterday.word up son

So we have an article saying chip yields have been bad which could lead to the PS5 being more expensive, and we have an article about how an analyst thinks it’ll be reasonably priced.

Who knows wtf to believe, hopefully Wednesday we’ll find out.

@NEStalgia I think one of the really big cost saves of the PS5 DE is often overlooked too, warranties. Moving parts like disc drives are way more likely to fail, hitting a company in the warranty pocket. Without the HD Blu-Ray drive the DE has far less likely components that can fail, so here in Europe over the two year warranty period the PS5 DE Will cost Sony way less potentially on repairs. It's why I also believe the rumours of an Xbox Series W or V, essentially an XSX without disc drive.

@Fenbops agreed, can't wait until tomorrow when also speculation stops and we know what Sony have got to show. Won't stop people speculating on how Sony can't afford whatever price they set the thing at, and how it'll bankrupt them.

@SirAngry I don’t care how they get to the price point, just that the price point is competitive. They have to tell us tomorrow right!?

The playstation 2 was an immensely successful piece of hardware, with a great library of games, to boot. But that didn't help the ps3 at launch, with the higher price and other debacles. Hopefully, ps5 doesnt follow suit. People say "I'll pay whatever the price" but when the time actually comes, sales speak louder. If the ps5, either edition, is $50 over the xbs', itll be a seller. And I dont really care if either company takes a hit on selling consoles. It's a win for gamers.

@Fenbops if they don't you up for forming a militia group and storming Sony HQ in a violent coup d'état?

@gollumb82 below $400 as in $399? that is the likely scenario

@Porco
Yup! Honestly, I'd be happy with a price tag of $399,99 (still below $400!)

@themightyant I think you're bang on. With multiple European retailers price lists being leaked, including Amazon Spain saying €499 and €399 respectively, I can see the same price or very similar (i dont think the DE will be any cheaper than 399 anywhere) across all countries. Including £ and $.

@SirAngry That's a good point. On the US side of the pond we don't think about that too much because for most products warranties are a myth that exists in fine print like copyright notices. Most things come with 30 or 90 day warranties. Basically, if it's not DoA it's fine, and if it's DoA you're better off going through the retailer than the warranty. And for most products warranty service involves paying so much to ship the product around and wait undisclosed periods of time for service (that may or may not be shoddily done) you're better off throwing the thing in the landfill and buying a new one. Some things have a 1 year warranty...can't recall if Playstations are one of those or not, but I think they are, which is slightly better.

Only products that use their 10 year warranty, or no-hassle warranties etc as a selling feature for differentiation tend to get much consideration in warranty costs.

But for a worldwide product like PS, that's definitely a factor, very good point!

This is the first generation were im fine not being in the mix on launch day. I will definitely be picking up both the ps5 an series x but Im just happy to wait until after Christmas. Cant even give a solid reason why.

Thats not to say i wont change my mind and crack beforehand, just right now the urgency aint there.

Would be a great strategy strength for Sony if they did this, imagine that it's only a little big more than the Switch, and less than the next X-box? Granted, that when the new consoles come out, the Switch will probably win for this holiday (due to more consoles made and a cheaper price), but, Sony and Microsoft will also be selling, and the PS4 could have a major price drop to compete. It's going to be interesting, considering that Black Friday is coming soon and the holiday rush. Will be neat to see what they do. Can sony sell the console for less, take a hit and win...absolutely. What they lose in console sales, they gain with Plus, Now and games.

@Kefka2589 like i say, it could all change between now and November haha.

That would be fantastic news.

i find it totally unjustifiable that a $20 bit of additional hardware means $100 (or worse £100) in retail costs. the cost difference between the digital and regular xbox1s models was about £30-£50. i understand why people think sony would do it, it's just not a justifiable reason in my opinion.

i'll throw out a guess of:
DE: $399/€399/£379
PS5: $449/€449/£425

also i think people are getting a bit overworked about the base price.. how many people just spend the cost of a console with nothing to go with it?. for the disc version at least, i expect there to be plenty of retailer bundles on offer for launch. even if sony does underprice MS (or vice versa) there is still plenty of scope for one or the other to even out the playing field with a decent pack-in of software/extra accessories... certainly for sony, who might actually have first party stuff on launch day. PS4 launch price was £349, but i got a bundle with killzone shadowfall, battlefield 4 and an extra controller for £429. i'm sure by christmas, total spend for me was probably closer to £600. the base price is not really the big picture. generally people who buy a console at launch are much more likely to bulk load on new games/accessories, which can quickly help offset some of the losses per unit..

@NEStalgia Dear lord, you lot don’t even have proper warranties? The more I hear about the strange idiosyncrasies of consumer and worker rights in the US, the more I wonder why anybody would emigrate there.

@SirAngry agree, besides that digital version is not really a loss its a delayed profit with ROI in 2-3 games max.

Don't forget, Sony have been absolutely raking it in with Plus subscriptions for several years. They could take a fair old hit on the cost to stick it to the competition. Whether they will or not is another matter, but they could.

@nessisonett But it's guaranteed not to break for 90 days....if it breaks after that it was your own fault for not buying a better product, clearly you were delivered a working product as promised! </sarc> Caveat emptorum, etc. etc.

PS4 is 1 year, I did just check that (applies to Canada as well.) if you want more than that, the retailer may or may not be affiliated with a third party insurance company that sells "extended warranties." The value of those warranties are variable...

@leucocyte It's not about the $20 in hardware justifying $100 more in retail costs. It's about Sony taking a bigger loss in selling it because it almost guarantees over the long term, owners will provide them a greater return on that initial investment.

Consider Player 1 buys a PS5 disc and buys 15 games over the next 5 years. Say Sony took a $100 loss selling them the console, then sells them 5 games, whereby they got publisher licensing fees, but the $60 for the game from the customer split the earnings between the retailer, the manufacturing cost, the distribution costs, import fees, etc. etc. Sony gets maybe $10-15 out of those 5 games. The other games the player bought used. Sony didn't get a dime except maybe DLC.

Now imagine Player 2 buys the digital console and also buys 15 games over the next 5 years. Sony gets the licensing fees. They get a flat surcharge on each sale (probably not Apple's 30%, lol) that's not first party, and they get the whole value of each first party.

Player 2 just handed Sony a lot more money for games.

So Sony can afford to take a bigger loss on the sale of the console itself if it's making the player commit to buy everything new, and only through their store, with no used sales involved. And it's in their best interest to convince players to do this now, so that in a future generation, they can deny everyone the choice, and finally eliminate the concept of "used" and middlemen once and for all, and there won't be endless backlash.

But indeed you're very right, they aren't giving this stuff for free. They'll make the money back either through accessories, the outrageous storage upgrades, service fees, game prices, reduced sales. The race to the bottom of console pricing means a race to bill us for something else somewhere else.... They'll get our money eventually...

@NEStalgia - i don't really buy that argument that inherently sony will be able to make so much more money out of people who buy the digital edition. for people who do want to buy the physical version - PS+ costs the same, PSNow costs the same, other services, DLC, virtual currencies and microtransactions all cost the same - sony's not making any less there.. they also get the licence fees for every (new) disc sold. the idea that everyone who wants the flexibility of disks is somebody who's going to buy used games play them for a bit then sell them on and repeat the cycle (especially at a launch) is unfounded. quite frankly it would feel like being asked to give a $50 subsidy to the digital version just to make its launch price look more attractive.

@malbhet The discless PS5 is the same as the regular one. And yeah, the Series S is very underpowered compared to the Series X and PS5. It has less than half the graphical processing power of the PS5 and is a fraction of the power in other regards too. I think MS are hoping people won't realise that it's more like a PS4 Pro+ than like a PS5.

@leucocyte I totally disagree. Not only do digital games typically cost 150% of the price of disc (£60 vs £40) but also more of that goes to Sony. Then there's preowned which you touched on but disregarded. Let me put it this way, places like CeX sell hundreds of thousands of games a year in the UK and that's therefore hundreds of thousands of sales Sony are missing out on. It'd take 16,666 such sales of £60 digital games to generate £1,000,000 so every 16,666 CeX sales is a million less for Sony and the publisher.

The other day I got a preowned copy of UFC4 for £4 from CeX because I traded in two games (both of which obviously are disc versions and so even those initial purchases deprived Sony of money vs digital). The same game is currently £60 on the PS Store. It saved me £56 and cost Sony a big percentage of £60. With one game I've nearly cancelled out the savings I'd get from buying a discless PS5 and Sony have made £0 from me. That's a huge deal for them when you multiply that by tens of millions of gamers across, say, 7 years of next gen.

@leucocyte let's pretend used games aren't an issue that console manufacturers and games publishers have been trying to find a way out of for decades.

Sony's cut on disc sales is less than their cut via their own digital storefront, which means each game earns them now money. PS+ and PS Now are irrelevant because they're a separate revenue stream, and they're common to both SKUs.

Some people with the optical disc edition will make Sony just as much money as people with the digital edition, but overall the digital edition has the greater potential for income over the next decade, which is what Sony are interested in, and what a lot of their shareholders are interested in. Japanese culture is such that businesses are expected to take that sort of long term view far more than we tend to in the West.

£349/$399 Digital and £449/$499 Standard. You heard it here first

I do not believe that would be that low. 500$ for standard and 400 - 450$ for discless. I think it is a good price in my opinion. We shall see.

@themightyant These prices look more realistic to me.

It also fits with the 7th gen vibe I'm getting.