Japan's Cheaper, Language Locked PS5 Shielded from Outrageous Price Increases

So you’re saying it’s actually cheaper to pay for language courses, learn Japanese, then source a black market Japan-only PS5 because they won’t ship them internationally than it is to just buy one at Walmart a week from now.

Meanwhile, the capital s**thole of Europe (Bosnia) doesn't have regional pricing lol. I wish Sony would do this for emerging markets but alas, they need that shareholder money 😍😍😍

I hope by the end of the year Sony will further increase prices in all other markets so we can cover the fragile Japanese economy and their low income households.

Hmmm. Not sure about this. Yes it supports the Japanese market where i assume sales numbers are low, but this undermines Sony's messaging about the reasons for hiking the prices by SO much elsewhere.

@Balaam_ Only problem is that by the time the average person has learned Japanese, the PS8 will be out

This just proves it's just greed.

@Divergent95 Congrats on the penalty shootout victory and reaching the play-off finals!

As much as I appreciate Nishino's dedication to the Japanese market, he shouldn't forget which market has carried the PS4 and PS5 all these years. It would therefore only be fair if there were an English Only or German/France/Spanish/Ect. Only PS5 Edition.

The Japanese couldn't care less about the PS5, as the weekly Famitsu sales figures show.

Especially since GTA VI will bring Sony more money than all Japanese games combined.

@Balaam_ You know you might be on the right track. Plus learning a language has shown to be pretty beneficial mentally, might not be a bad idea if we all got together to do that lol

Sounds like they are looking after there own first!

@Globo crazy concept, I wish the US and Europe would adopt it.

Just to put that in context, I bought mine for ¥50,000 on launch. It’s now almost double, and my wages have pretty much stayed the same. Getting tough to live in Japan.
If this is any indication of the PS6 price, there is no way I can justify it.

@Oneluckyfarmer They are far to fragmented to do that except for the French to be honest ha
One person goes on strike there the whole country joins in haha 😂

I don't get why they keep increasing the price indefinitely. They don't bet on game sales anymore? Every manufacturer used to sell their consoles at a loss.

nintendo gave japan switch 2 a huge and current discount compared to rest of the world..

Why is it “outrageous?”

Ahh yes, the tried and true method of cultural favoritism. Yes, this has worked truly well in the past. /s

@Rob_230 The yen has been an absolute binfire for at least 6 months and even before that it was getting bad. I think gbp currently buys you more yen than in the last 16 years and it’s not like gbp is doing gang busters.

I imagine the domestic Japanese model is being subsidised by the rest of us.

If they increase the price a couple more times, they can later reveal the PS6 and say: "Look! It's better and cheaper too!" Marketing at its best xD

@Rhaoulos I'm not going to go into too much of the behind the doors stuff. But to your specific point, independently from whether they do or not subsidize HW sales with SW, if HW manufacturing cost increases, they have to increase sale price, or sell much more SW to cover for a presumably even bigger loss on HW; so support an even higher risk. All the more compounded by the fact that late adopters do spend much less on SW than early adopters. Something like 2-4x less... so yeah... with components price increase and general inflation, it was more a question of when than if...

@LowDefAl time to go on holidays in Japan, Yen is ridiculously low currently, you can go to high end sushi places and pay the equivalent of a lowrange EU restaurant ^_^