Sony is Raising PlayStation 5 Prices Again, Between $100 and $150

Sony is Raising PlayStation 5 Prices Again, Between $100 and $150 (arstechnica.com) 8 Memory and storage shortages and price hikes have "steadily rippled outward across all kinds of consumer tech," reports Ars Technica. "Today's bad news comes from Sony, which is raising prices for PlayStation 5 consoles in the US just eight months after their last price hike." The drive-less Digital Edition will increase from $500 to $600; the base PS5 with an optical drive will increase from $550 to $650; and the PS5 Pro is going up from $750 to a whopping $900. At the beginning of 2025, these consoles cost $450, $500, and $700, respectively... RAM and flash memory chips are in short supply primarily because of demand from AI data centers — memory manufacturers have shifted more production toward making the kind of memory found in AI accelerators like Nvidia's H200, leaving less for the consumer market. And the situation is unlikely to improve any time soon, barring a major shift in demand from the AI industry. "Today's bad news comes from Sony, which is raising prices for PlayStation 5 consoles in the US just eight months after their last price hike." The drive-less Digital Edition will increase from $500 to $600; the base PS5 with an optical drive will increase from $550 to $650; and the PS5 Pro is going up from $750 to a whopping $900. At the beginning of 2025, these consoles cost $450, $500, and $700, respectively... RAM and flash memory chips are in short supply primarily because of demand from AI data centers — memory manufacturers have shifted more production toward making the kind of memory found in AI accelerators like Nvidia's H200, leaving less for the consumer market. And the situation is unlikely to improve any time soon, barring a major shift in demand from the AI industry. Some might, I won't be. (Score:3) $900 USD is just not worth it for me for console gaming. I've already got a PC that works, and games I like for it. I'm just going into a holding pattern for buying any computing equipment unless I absolutely need to. I suspect I'm going to be in the majority on that. Re: (Score:2) Yeah me too. It just feels stupid to buy ram, ssd and GPUs at this price. Cheap chinese RAM and SSD are coming and testing seems to indicate they're almost as good as the old stuff, so I hope my hardware will last until prices go down. GPU prices though - it may be a while. Re: (Score:2) Just wait until you see Steam Machine pricing. Anyway, Sony can jog on. They raised prices in Europe when Trump brought tariffs in on Americans. That's a bold strategy (Score:2) It's a 5-year-old gaming console at this point. I'd imagine by now there's a decent supply of used ones available. Personally, aside from a Nintendo Switch that I was given as a gift (and it's basically obsolete at this point), I'm team PC Master Race when it comes to gaming. If you're buying a console you may as well just take your money outside and light it on fire. I'd Totally Pay (Score:2) I'd totally pay $100 to $150 for a Playstation. Anymore than that and Sony Playstation is a hard pass. This is getting into Mac territory... (Score:2) For this price, I can buy a Mac and go into Mac gaming... ...oh wait. But still, when console prices wind up this high, it only will hurt the software sellers because fewer people will be buying consoles, diminishing the audience of their games. I would say SOE is eating their seed corn. You want inexpensive consoles so you can sell stuff for them. Basic razor and blade marketing.