Increasing prices across the board are becoming a plague now, fueled by everything from tariffs to wars to the AI industry's devouring of hardware components. Sony's PlayStation hardware is the latest to get an increase, according to a blog post from the company on Friday. It's the second such hike, in fact, after 2025's price bumps.
The price increases take effect on Thursday, April 2, so now's the time to get one of Sony's consoles before they go up. The increases are pretty significant:
- PlayStation 5 Digital: Up $100 -- now $500, soon to be $600
- PlayStation 5 with disc: Up $100 -- now $550, soon to be $650 (read our original review from 2020)
- PlayStation 5 Pro: Up $150 -- now $750, soon to be $900 (read our original review)
- PlayStation Portal: Up $50 -- now $200, soon to be $250 (read our original review)
This happened to Microsoft's Xboxes last fall, and Nintendo's original Switch hardware last August. And with the current economic climate and political chaos, who knows where things could go next?
My big question is, who would ever pay $900 for a game console? And who will even pay $600 for a console that's now almost six years old? While the PlayStation 5 has had a lot of wonderful games, sales declined last holiday compared to the year before. Gaming hardware increasingly feels like a luxury now, and I wonder how many people will continue to indulge in it versus just using whatever hardware they already have instead.
Read more: RAM Shortage and Higher Laptop Prices Not Expected to End This Year (or Next)
