PS5 Price Hike Hits Japan Hard as PS5 Pro Sales Sink to Xbox Levels

With sales like this it won't be long before they reverse the price increase, well in Japan atleast.

Selling hardware for cheaper but selling more of it is surely a better outcome than selling hardware that costs more but in return getting less sales.

This is why PS5 was the best selling console over the last holiday period, because they had a decent sale on the consoles. More customers means more game sales, more ps plus subscribers and more people buying MTX that Sony get a cut of, selling hardware for cheaper is offset by this. Raising the prices was the wrong decision.

Switch 1: 16,300 units
PS5: 13,500 units

And that with the PS5 Japanese-only model highly subsidised, while Nintendo is probably earning money with every Switch 1 sold. That is the worst part of the story.

Hopefully this happens in all the countries. These companies need to realize charging this much for a 5 year old console is ridiculous. Consoles are sold at a loss, but games sales and subscriptions make up for it that's how it's always been.

Here in the UK, I know Argos at least are still selling at the pre- price increase. I think Very are too- on SOME of their bundles

@UltimateOtaku91 mostly yes. However if you’re a ps5 owner that doesn’t buy new games, only pre-owned single player, and doesn’t subscribe to psn then selling a console at a loss is a problem. Especially given the current economic climate where people are looking to cut subscriptions and save money where they can.

It’s far safer to sell a console at cost these days and preferably at a profit.

However, I do think digital only consoles should be subsidised as they lock the consumer into the digital storefront and eliminate access to the second hand market

95% of the PS5 sales are the digital edition. Wow.

Back in the day, Sony and all other manufacturers used to take a real hit on Console profits, selling them for a loss and making money back on sales of software. Sony could easily go back to that ethos, especially this late on in the generation. At worst, they could have kept the prices that they were at, it certainly would have kept sales at the levels they were at instead of crashing.

I thought the price hikes didn’t effect Japan?

@Swirly Same with Smiths must of been an April fools joke.

Couldn't you get around the massive hike increase from the digital to the disc model in Japan by buying or importing a disc drive add-on? Or is there some restriction on that specific to the language locked model?

@Bionic-Spencer Between 2006 and 2008, that strategy cost Sony approximately $3.3 billion (with a B) with PS3 consoles costing around $300 more to make than they were selling them for. Can't really blame them for being leery about returning to those days.

@MamaSymphonia

But you could make a sort of roundabout argument subsidizing the PS3 console at a massive cost built their market momentum, continuing into the PS4 and PS5 eras, helping somewhat to cement their current status as undisputed market leaders in their segment. Maybe the 3.3B cost earned them 33B in the long run on microtransactions. Who really knows or could say... but that was the general idea of subsidizing the consoles from the beginning. Spend some money today to make a lot more later.

Corporations and thinking beyond the next fiscal quarter don't really go together as much these days though. Lines must go up, right now. They think primarily in 3-month increments, not 10 years down the road. And who cares what happens next year, the CEO can just take a leap off the top of a building with a golden parachute when the short term cost saving calls hurt the long term health of the company - as they always do.

Curious to see what PS5 sales do in western countries, and what methods they use to extract more money from the current user base after sales fall through the sub-basement floor.

That's about a 330% increase for the Japanese language locked SKU over last week.

@Swirly Here in Ireland Smyth's still have all PS5 consoles at the pre-increase price as well.

@Boxmonkey The price hikes don't affect the Digital Edition Japan only PS5 model meanwhile all the other PS5 models (international digital edition, international disc model, Pro) were given a price hike.

Good for them. That’s the number they deserve for thinking this price is in any way acceptable.

@UnlimitedSevens precisely. I’ve been saying it for a while. People focus way too much on certain things and ignore the bigger picture.

GOOD! The more the prise rises flatline sales, the more it'll put them off charging 900 for the PS6. Let's hope they reduce the prices soon enough when RAM and storage comes back down.

They're going to end up lowering the price.

I’m not saying i’m happy with these prices. But one thing i don't understand is when people say that these prices are ridiculous. If Sony were the only one raising prices, i’d understand.

But Xbox prices have increased, Switch, PC prices have surged, houses have almost doubled in price the last decade, groceries, phones costs $1500. A 3 course dinner sets me back around €120 nowadays.

Like literally everything has gotten more expensive.

But somehow Sony is the one that’s ridiculous with these prices? Do people expect their business operates in a vacuum? Are they immune to the rest of the market and the world economy?

I understand people are disappointed. And i’d like PS5’s to be cheaper as well. But how can we genuinely expect the PS5 to stay at $499 or even lower when literally everything else is getting more expensive?