PS5 price to increase in select markets due to global economic environment, including high inflation rates

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Shmunter

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Oh I see why you asked, but not sure what your point is.. isolating the cost of the processor is all that really matters here because it is the only thing PSVR2 is lacking compared to Quest 2. Every other part in the PSVR2 including it's 2 controllers are going to be more costly.

Quest 2 is cheap shit really + a processor other units don't have. It is likely deeply subsidized even w/ most of it being lower quality than anything in PSVR2. We don't know how much, but Zuck has outright said it is subsidized.

More comparable devices to PSVR2 are $1000-1300.
It’s not just the processor tho. It’s also flash storage, battery, charger?, wifi. Etc.

What’s comparable to PSVR2? Do other pc based headsets have inside out tracking?
 

Papacheeks

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It’s not just the processor tho. It’s also flash storage, battery, charger?, wifi. Etc.

What’s comparable to PSVR2? Do other pc based headsets have inside out tracking?

New Oculus thats coming soon was leaked it has that. But its going to be expensive for sure.
 

Big Boss

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I kind of regret not buying a second PS5 when I had the chance now. It'll will likely hit US too.
 

laynelane

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It'll be interesting to see how this turns out. That is, what the market decides. I suspect it won't slow PS5's momentum down very much, if at all. I wonder sometimes if current Sony decisions for short-terms gains will cost them long-term good will, though. I don't have a PS5 yet and it was only raised by $20 where I am so I can't claim to be outraged personally, but I can see how it might bother others more.
 

Papacheeks

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Pound for pound at this very moment in time PS Plus Premium is the better service imo. Now next year will probably be very different.

Unless Starifled is the second coming, and they have something big for 2023 doubtful. 2023 has FF16, FFVII REBIRTH, SPIDERMAN 2 just to name a few.

Unless Microsoft pays couple million to billion to get a Capcom game day one or something. It's all going to be riding on their first party. COD wont be day one on their service next year and COD is skipping next year all together. So even when the next one in 2024 comes its still will have marketing rights to adhere to for Sony deal.

Now if Fable or Avowed launched sometime next year, then I think we have something. But if its just starfield, not going to hold a lot of weight after seeing what it looks and plays like. Even with all the extra time it looks like a nicer Fallout 4 in space with more emphasis on straight up shooting/flying.
 

Darth Vader

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Ok great, you too are now incompetent according to the member i originally responded to. Because it sounds like you and Jim think alike as most of these things are already in play at sie. Not necessarily better just more of the same is what i got, therefore incompetent…….
They are not remotely the same, and I say I'd present proposals including the PC. I'm more than happy to exclude because I don't like it.

Your gotcha failed
 

IntentionalPun

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It’s not just the processor tho. It’s also flash storage, battery, charger?, wifi. Etc.

What’s comparable to PSVR2? Do other pc based headsets have inside out tracking?

Yes you are right, flash and battery also unique compared to PSVR2.

PSVR2 is top-of-the-line hardware for a non-headless VR unit, and it is arguably significantly better than the $1000 Valve Index, which is not priced to profit.

Thats a much better thing to look at than the cheap ass Quest 2 that is heavily subsidized by Facebook, and trying to figure out how the extra processor/wifi/storage/battery factor in.

I'm not saying PSVR2 is going to be $1000, but actually counting on less than $500 seems wishful thinking. I think $400 is a bare minimum, but I'm expecting $499 myself.

Sony will have much better supply chain than the "guy watching web sites in China buying parts" supply chain org Valve has, so their costs will be much better optimized... but it's still not going to be cheap.
 

Loy310

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They are not remotely the same, and I say I'd present proposals including the PC. I'm more than happy to exclude because I don't like it.

Your gotcha failed
Was not even going for a gotcha, you are over thinking my original argument. Anyhow, moving on.
 
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Dr Bass

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Supply certainly outpaces demand for Series S. I think they produced a lot, and well.. just want to increase demand like you said.

MS has to manage the production rate of X vs S, and have talked about the balance.. they probably have a chance to switch the balance back to X for a while now that Series S has just been so "in stock" for so long.

My point was that it is moving units... it's why MS can be ahead on unit sales and lose the revenue race different months vs. Playstation. It's out there on shelves, but that's partly because MS is replenishing stock that was sold.

Series X isn't really on shelves yet, but has enough stock to be sort of indefinitely online... if they shift production more to X we might see it start sitting on shelves too.
Series X is absolutely on shelves. I can go pick one up right now at many locations in SoCal. Stock is verifiable online.
 

IntentionalPun

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Series X is absolutely on shelves. I can go pick one up right now at many locations in SoCal. Stock is verifiable online.
Ah cool.. been checking Target and Best Buy around here and haven't seen it.. but it has been a couple weeks.

I see Best Buy is fairly flush with stock right now though 2 weeks ago it didn't even have the option for pickup at all, Target still has no option for pickup.

But thanks for the correction.

We are absolutely going to see PS5 break away in sales from XSX probably quickly to being at that 2+:1 we had by the end of last gen... and unless MS gets some momentum back it'll be an even worse gen for them. Only hope for that not happening is that this stock all sells out during holidays, because if it's still on shelves throughout the year... and Sony is actually producing MORE units.. damn.

In the end doesn't mean the XBox business or console platform isn't healthy.. but it's possible it's going to sell less than last gen and I don't think that's a good sign for MS.

They fumbled so badly with exclusives it's insane.
 
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MScarpa

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It'll be interesting to see how this turns out. That is, what the market decides. I suspect it won't slow PS5's momentum down very much, if at all. I wonder sometimes if current Sony decisions for short-terms gains will cost them long-term good will, though. I don't have a PS5 yet and it was only raised by $20 where I am so I can't claim to be outraged personally, but I can see how it might bother others more.

Everything is going to slow down. Just a matter of how slow is all. Buying a Playstation and peripherals/games is very low on a list of priorities when gas/food/rent is going through the roof.
 

Shmunter

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Pound for pound at this very moment in time PS Plus Premium is the better service imo. Now next year will probably be very different.
Psplus apparently has 700+ games, Gamepass 300+.

Quite a wide margin, but yes day one acti/blizzard & bathesda is highly compelling.

Competition good for all.
 
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Shmunter

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Yes you are right, flash and battery also unique compared to PSVR2.

PSVR2 is top-of-the-line hardware for a non-headless VR unit, and it is arguably significantly better than the $1000 Valve Index, which is not priced to profit.

Thats a much better thing to look at than the cheap ass Quest 2 that is heavily subsidized by Facebook, and trying to figure out how the extra processor/wifi/storage/battery factor in.

I'm not saying PSVR2 is going to be $1000, but actually counting on less than $500 seems wishful thinking. I think $400 is a bare minimum, but I'm expecting $499 myself.

Sony will have much better supply chain than the "guy watching web sites in China buying parts" supply chain org Valve has, so their costs will be much better optimized... but it's still not going to be cheap.
See how it plays out, either way day 1 here
 
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Nintendo is using old ass shit. So chip wise they don’t have to worry. On top of things like size, weight, of what they freight.

PS5 is way more complex and custom to make. They literally up till the past year had to change where certain components were made. On top of in first year if it’s release shrink the heat sink.

Oculus went up by $100 fucking dollars.

I think we get a cheaper redesign sooner than later.

Sony is not a trillion dollar company. And before you point to Nintendo, Nintendo spends less than a third than what Sony does re-investment wise.

Sony literally spends 4-5x the amount investment wise and has higher operating costs than Nintendo. And made like close to same amount net profit wise last year.

So you do the math.

Microsoft names billions per month on software subs alone for enterprise. Let alone their other products like azure.

You think this is something Sony wants to do after getting out of Covid and getting supply chain allotment some what sorted?

Now all of that has gone out the window with prices on everything going up. So the plastics in a console, down to the copper where Ukraine is one of the main places the world gets it from.

Hi back and look at PS3 days. They ate a lot of it because our side of certain components there were none global factors. As in tarrifs, exchange rates were not so jacked.

They were not spending tripled to quadruple price in petroleum. Fright weight, all that.

I mean it sucks. And Sony should weather the storm. But got to factor in what they also make. Cameras fir films, broadcast equipment, tv’s, phones. Costs on everything they make and they primarily are a consumer/product driven company. Nintendo is very lean in their spending. And have a product they have stock piles upon stock piles that takes less space to ship/freight.

Also something else about the Swtich: they are on an older node process that is far less in-demand among many companies, so the only thing really limiting Nintendo in terms of getting chips for the Switch (outside of RAM and storage) is how much money they want to spend on production and what capacities their distribution channels can handle peak-wise. They haven't had to deal with other companies fighting for a newer node process the way Microsoft and Sony have.

I needed a bit of a mental break yesterday in terms of gaming stuff (well, outside of Twitter) because I was still just trying to figure why Sony made the announcement of the price increase the way they did. Also seeing some of the outright ridiculous and fanboyish statements from users on certain other forums (the one that starts with an R), you can tell they've always had a disdain for Sony and it seems like that forum in particular has become increasingly hostile towards the company/brand and are acting like X Ambassadors, seeing news like this transpire just lets them open the floodgates in the thinly-veiled favoritism.

Even seeing guys like Daniel Ahmed basically console war for brownie points on Twitter, these people are supposed to be professionals but they cannot help themselves in delving into toxicity at the times they should be the most professional. It's embarrassing. People are forgetting there are very real economic factors in place causing these problems, and that Nintendo are not Sony who are not Microsoft. Some companies have a funding style and manufacturing style that favors very conservative spending (Nintendo) to where of course they don't need to raise their prices. Other companies make so much money in massive data-driven markets like cloud, enterprise services and OS (Microsoft) where the comparatively puny revenue and losses their gaming operation brings, has effectively no impact on their main revenue streams. So, If their total hardware production operating income is like $1 billion/FY and they now have to pay a 30% increase due to inflation on that, that is still only $1.3 billion/FY for a company with an operating income of some $70 billion. That $1.3 billion is NOTHING to them.

Sony are unique in that they produce higher-performance hardware and software with much less profit margins than Nintendo and even Microsoft (gaming-wise), but don't have the security blanket of Azure/Office/Windows that Microsoft does, meaning the inflation costs hit them harder than both. I hate that when these facts are brought up, some people act like they are excuses. They aren't. And it doesn't mean I have to like the price increases, I don't think anyone does. However, it IS important to keep this stuff in mind to at least understand why one company increases costs in response, and others don't.

Again, I think Sony could've gone about it better via bundles replacing standalone systems in larger volumes at a higher price. They should've paired the price increase news with something they know fans have been wanting to see for a while now, like some gameplay from GOW Ragnarok or a teaser reveal for a new 1P AAA IP, things we KNOW are in development and on the way, in theory anyway. A DualSense Edge reveal was not going to be enough to soften the delivery of the price increase news.

But some of the wild takes I've been seeing, from people suddenly saying PS5 will sell less than PS3, to (supposedly) Japanese PC gamers portbegging for FF XVI, to people likening the news to the XBO reveal or MS's response as their "This is how you share games" moment. I don't care so much that randoms online are saying that kind of stuff, they always do. The problem is when people supposedly well-respected in the industry and community as voices with large platforms and influence are doing it in ways to obviously egg on console wars toxicity. That's the stuff I genuinely despise because it's like, if you're not going to be responsible with your platform and your reach, you don't deserve it IMO.

Also for how busy on Twitter some Xbox Ambassadors and corporate types like Aaron and Phil are, knowing full well they can see some of the toxicity spreading around posts of theirs and those of people they follow, for all they talk about unity and ending fanboyism and everyone coming together, apparently that only extends to anything which could be perceived negative towards the Xbox brand. If it's anything that can be weaponized against PlayStation, the gloves are off and these same types pretend like they see nothing, no voicing of togetherness.

Because of course there wouldn't be, when it directly benefits the optics and public perception of your own brand in contrast. I respect that from a business POV, but at least be honest about it and don't go preaching the kumbaya stuff when you want to deflect from your own stuff when that goes wrong. When that happens, just shut up and take the heat, that's what Sony pretty much have to do now.

Sorry for the mini-rant.

The other thing I don't hear you mention is that if a game isn't fun it won't matter what the price is. Lower pricing for consoles and software is good for gamers. Lower prices means more people playing. More people playing means a bigger ecosystem and more support from more developers. More developers means increased competition which leads to higher quality games overall. I'm thinking you are looking at things a bit short-sightedly.

We have a history of console gaming that shows this isn't inherently true. MegaDrive and its games were cheaper in Japan than Super Famicom, yet SFC outsold it in that territory over 4:1. The Dreamcast reached a point where Sega were effectively giving it away for free by mid-2001 with subscriptions to SegaNET...and it was still being outsold in NPD several months by the PS1.

The PS3 reached a point where it not only had built-in Blu-Ray, wifi, etc. but also free online, but was also available at or near the cost of the 360 in NA...yet 360 continued to dominate it in the US for that console generation. Microsoft has basically enabled a buy-once, play-anywhere policy with their 1P games for Xbox & PC, yet several releases post-2015 have seen lower and lower sales even with more platforms available to play those games on.

The point is, lower costs don't mean much if the customers don't perceive the value to be worth the cost, regardless how expensive OR cheap something is. Newgrounds and other flash game sites are completely free, but I doubt they have more player counts than Steam, Switch, Xbox, or PlayStation, even if just looking at the non F2P games.

With Microsoft, they still need to convince many people outside of the Xbox ecosystem, that they have enough quality at a high enough quality and variety, to where those people will consider investing into the ecosystem. That isn't saying Xbox doesn't have quality software: the Forza games are generally very good, SoT has its fans and is unique among live-service games, they have some good RTS games and Flight Sim is top of its class (albeit there aren't many around), but that's not enough of a good variety. At least those games ARE exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem, though, because that's another factor.

And we still have no real way of gauging if MS 1P as a whole will reach that point. TBF, Sony's 1P could use a bit more variety too IMO, I'd like to see a return of stuff like Echochrome, Motorstorm, UmJammer/Parappa, Tomba!, even Jet Moto etc. or weird stuff like Mr. Mosquito, JRPGs like Dark Cloud etc. to balance out the Uncharteds, Gran Turismos, TLOUs, God of Wars, and Spiderman type of games. There's some voids left by certain 3P IP no longer around too like Katamari Damacy that would be neat to see new spins on and a 1P take is probably the best chance of that happening. And I also think Sony will have to get more aggressive with 3P deals for PS+; even if that means they don't have as many Day 1 releases, they could do better deals with bigger 3P releases and lock down Game Trails a month in advance of release of the game on PS and other platforms, for example. They have to consider things like that going forward.


I doubt that Microsoft lowers the price too but they did a sale for Xbox One during the November/December Holidays and then go back to MSRP in early January. So while not a permanent price cut, it would be more of a sale price because if you're looking at $500+ in other regions and in some cases, the games are $125+, that's a lot of money to be spending on gaming especially if it's someone with responsibilities and high expenses. With GOWR releasing in the second week of November, Microsoft coming out late October and saying that between November 1st and December 31st, you can get a Series X/S for $400/$200, they would sell every single console in my opinion especially in other regions because if you're talking a few hundred dollars more, a lot of people will simply be like, fuck that shit.

Yeah, they probably will hit 33m or at least get close to it. I agree in regards to showing single player games from their studios but compared to last year, im honestly expecting more of an emphasis on their live service games and PSVR 2 at this year's showcase.

$400/$200 for Series X and S timed for GOW Ragnarok would still be potentially too drastic, they also don't want to signal any optics as if they are scared or doing something that could make them look weak, even if such a drastic price drop would only be temporary as a promotional price. There is also the very real issue that they could be seen as price fixing the systems by undercutting their nearest rival so much when the same economic factors of inflation are hitting them both.

MS trying to take advantage of that knowing such a fact could make them look a bit greedy and it could also affect the ABK acquisition as well as whatever conditions are placed on them to ensure it goes through, especially if them doing such a thing created a very obvious immediate effect of weakening PS5 sales. Main reason being, because the sales gained with Series in that event would have been primarily driven by customer demand not so much off the foundation of actual product offerings, but off of MS taking advantage of a hostile economic environment and leveraging it manipulatively against a much smaller corporate competitor.
 
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laynelane

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Also something else about the Swtich: they are on an older node process that is far less in-demand among many companies, so the only thing really limiting Nintendo in terms of getting chips for the Switch (outside of RAM and storage) is how much money they want to spend on production and what capacities their distribution channels can handle peak-wise. They haven't had to deal with other companies fighting for a newer node process the way Microsoft and Sony have.

I needed a bit of a mental break yesterday in terms of gaming stuff (well, outside of Twitter) because I was still just trying to figure why Sony made the announcement of the price increase the way they did. Also seeing some of the outright ridiculous and fanboyish statements from users on certain other forums (the one that starts with an R), you can tell they've always had a disdain for Sony and it seems like that forum in particular has become increasingly hostile towards the company/brand and are acting like X Ambassadors, seeing news like this transpire just lets them open the floodgates in the thinly-veiled favoritism.

Even seeing guys like Daniel Ahmed basically console war for brownie points on Twitter, these people are supposed to be professionals but they cannot help themselves in delving into toxicity at the times they should be the most professional. It's embarrassing. People are forgetting there are very real economic factors in place causing these problems, and that Nintendo are not Sony who are not Microsoft. Some companies have a funding style and manufacturing style that favors very conservative spending (Nintendo) to where of course they don't need to raise their prices. Other companies make so much money in massive data-driven markets like cloud, enterprise services and OS (Microsoft) where the comparatively puny revenue and losses their gaming operation brings, has effectively no impact on their main revenue streams. So, If their total hardware production operating income is like $1 billion/FY and they now have to pay a 30% increase due to inflation on that, that is still only $1.3 billion/FY for a company with an operating income of some $70 billion. That $1.3 billion is NOTHING to them.

Sony are unique in that they produce higher-performance hardware and software with much less profit margins than Nintendo and even Microsoft (gaming-wise), but don't have the security blanket of Azure/Office/Windows that Microsoft does, meaning the inflation costs hit them harder than both. I hate that when these facts are brought up, some people act like they are excuses. They aren't. And it doesn't mean I have to like the price increases, I don't think anyone does. However, it IS important to keep this stuff in mind to at least understand why one company increases costs in response, and others don't.

Again, I think Sony could've gone about it better via bundles replacing standalone systems in larger volumes at a higher price. They should've paired the price increase news with something they know fans have been wanting to see for a while now, like some gameplay from GOW Ragnarok or a teaser reveal for a new 1P AAA IP, things we KNOW are in development and on the way, in theory anyway. A DualSense Edge reveal was not going to be enough to soften the delivery of the price increase news.

But some of the wild takes I've been seeing, from people suddenly saying PS5 will sell less than PS3, to (supposedly) Japanese PC gamers portbegging for FF XVI, to people likening the news to the XBO reveal or MS's response as their "This is how you share games" moment. I don't care so much that randoms online are saying that kind of stuff, they always do. The problem is when people supposedly well-respected in the industry and community as voices with large platforms and influence are doing it in ways to obviously egg on console wars toxicity. That's the stuff I genuinely despise because it's like, if you're not going to be responsible with your platform and your reach, you don't deserve it IMO.

Also for how busy on Twitter some Xbox Ambassadors and corporate types like Aaron and Phil are, knowing full well they can see some of the toxicity spreading around posts of theirs and those of people they follow, for all they talk about unity and ending fanboyism and everyone coming together, apparently that only extends to anything which could be perceived negative towards the Xbox brand. If it's anything that can be weaponized against PlayStation, the gloves are off and these same types pretend like they see nothing, no voicing of togetherness.

Because of course there wouldn't be, when it directly benefits the optics and public perception of your own brand in contrast. I respect that from a business POV, but at least be honest about it and don't go preaching the kumbaya stuff when you want to deflect from your own stuff when that goes wrong. When that happens, just shut up and take the heat, that's what Sony pretty much have to do now.

Sorry for the mini-rant.


This may sound strange, but I respect that Sony shuts up and takes the heat a lot more than the alternative. Whether it's Twitter analysts or "experts" or two-faced business people or extreme fans - all that warring is tiresome over time and just negative as hell. It's also very transparent, especially when corporate types engage in it. I can sort of see why certain people do it (eg. analysts) - console war rhetoric drives engagement which allows more exposure and may lead to more income opportunities. It's still intellectually dishonest, though, and disappointing.

I prefer a more analytical approach and so appreciate your reasoning on why Sony increased the price. Thank you for that. It's very interesting to delve into the why and how of a situation as opposed to going straight to outrage and gotcha! bullshit.
 
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Umar

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God dammit jim go 2 seconds without fucking something else up.

Can you imagine if jim called the shots during ps3/ps4 era transition. No playstation comeback thats for sure. And i know dude did alot to help grow playstation in europe, but that was under guys like kaz.
Kaz and Andrew were way better leaders than him
 

Sleepy Brown

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Sony will go 3rd party soon. That's the reason why they are milking the PS community right now.
The signs were on the wall:
10€ for cross-gen upgrades.
80€ for games.
80€ for remakes of PS4 remasters.
550€ for a PS5 console.


They can't compete anymore. So they are focusing on Live-Service games to sell microtransactions on PC, Xbox, Switch and Mobile.
This is Sony's future. Jim Ryan knows this. And he's preparing SIE to drop out of the console race.
 

PropellerEar

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Sony will go 3rd party soon. That's the reason why they are milking the PS community right now.
The signs were on the wall:
10€ for cross-gen upgrades.
80€ for games.
80€ for remakes of PS4 remasters.
550€ for a PS5 console.


They can't compete anymore. So they are focusing on Live-Service games to sell microtransactions on PC, Xbox, Switch and Mobile.
This is Sony's future. Jim Ryan knows this. And he's preparing SIE to drop out of the console race.
Martin Lawrence Lol GIF by Martin
 
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