Sony increasing the price of PS5 by £30

[ox1973]

I have owned, and enjoyed, PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4. I still have the PS3 and PS4. When PS5 launched I would have snapped one up - had they been available at the time.

 

Over time, my enthusiasm has gradually subsided, to the point that I'm now just shrugging my shoulders now and thinking 'fuck that'.

 

 

 

[Strafe]

I can be reasonably sympathetic to the price hike because literally everything is getting more expensive and hardware manufacture is clearly not immune to it. Don’t get me wrong, I do not like that everything is more expensive but I can see why they and oculus have done it because this is the world we live in.

 

I’m thinking Microsoft probably won’t do it but that’s because they have significantly more money than Sony (and a lot less debt).

 

The Last of Us part 1 remaster for £70, though? That’s taking the fucking piss.

[Sarlaccfood]

16 minutes ago, JoeK said:

 

Thing is, Don Mattrick kind of was just a generation too early really. I think he absolutely fluffed it, but I don't think he was coming to it from anywhere near as cynical a place as where Sony are coming from now. 

 

I may well be very wrong about that though - the Xbox One generation passed me by completely until the One X came along, and that was really only to play Red Dead 2!

 

 

Nah it was an underpowered machine, forced Kinect inclusion and they hardly talked about games in the reveal. It was all TV content. 
 

It was a really reluctant games machine. Hence needing to be rebooted to the One X when Phil came along.

[Strafe]

I think they should have just switched to a mandatory digital game included type deal - say a voucher that gets you 1 out of Horizon FW, GT7, Returnal or Ratchet and Clank.

[Eighthours]

It’s amazing how PS5 Sony can’t seem to remember why PS3 Sony had to become PS4 Sony. 

[Kryptonian]

40 minutes ago, Sarlaccfood said:

I’m deffo part of the problem.

 

 

I managed to stick to my guns and have abandoned them following the PSN hack and then hearing more about their lackluster customer support when dealing with hacked accounts, refunds etc

[Sarlaccfood]

49 minutes ago, footle said:

dunno. This year they’ve released a micro transaction mess of a gran turismo game, and a horizon game that was overshadowed the following week.

Well ymmv with the games but the console has had more than that (tad reductive summary) released for it and I’ve not encountered any micro transactions in GT7, I think they fixed it pretty quick.
 

Though that’s kind of my point, the core product is good (in this case the game) it’s the corpo bullshit surrounding it (walked-back MTX) that’s woeful.

[rafaqat]

Loving the usual peeps excusing this.  "oh but it has great games"  yeesh.

 

The fact it's not been done in some markets is clear enough that it's not a cost of manufacturing issue alone. It's also which markets are happy to take a good shafting. 

[partious]

2 hours ago, ox1973 said:

I have owned, and enjoyed, PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4. I still have the PS3 and PS4. When PS5 launched I would have snapped one up - had they been available at the time.

 

Over time, my enthusiasm has gradually subsided, to the point that I'm now just shrugging my shoulders now and thinking 'fuck that'.

 

 

 

 

This is pretty much me too. Have owned every Sony console, but haven't been able to get a PS5 since launch ( I'm not in the UK where they always seem to have been somewhat easier to get).  I would have impulse bought a ps5 at any stage in the past 2 years if I'd actually seen one for rrp.

 

I built a gaming PC a couple of months ago but was still planning on getting a ps5 when possible for no particular reason (no interest in most sony exclusives, I just like having a console for the living room as well as a PC and I have a ps4 and not an Xbox one), but this move has sent my interest level to zero.

 

It's not the money as the increase makes no difference in terms of whether or not I can afford the console, but the announcement just confirmed to me that I don't like something about where Playstation is currently heading.

Also, 2 years of a scalpers paradise followed by an extra kick in the nuts of "oh and now we're raising rrp". I don't need any product enough to begrudgingly buy it despite being annoyed by the actions of the company making it. I'll get a series s or x for the living room instead.

[Sarlaccfood]

2 hours ago, rafaqat said:

Loving the usual peeps excusing this.  "oh but it has great games"  yeesh.

Nah no defending this. Proper scummy move.

[spanx]

Fuck ‘em. They’ll probably still get the odd few quid out of me for their PC ports but I’m happily now getting my gaming kicks from PC and Switch. 

[fat flatulent git]

8 hours ago, wev said:

Has a console ever got up in price post launch before?

 

Nintendo started charging retailers more to stock Wiis.

 

https://kotaku.com/nintendo-raising-uk-wii-trade-price-5168136

[deKay]

10 hours ago, wev said:

Has a console ever got up in price post launch before?

 

Oculus Quest 2

Evercade

Wii

[Alex W.]

I mentioned this in the other thread but I'm putting it here for posterity - although some of the prize rise is related to supply chain issues, and its geographic spread is related to inflation, the fact that consoles haven't been dropping in price is business as usual now. Sony has stayed quiet about it, but Microsoft engaged in some early expectations-setting that consoles will not get cheaper over time in this generation:

 

Quote

"Moore's Law is certainly not dead! Moore's Law is continuing and we have a good path to 5nm and 3nm, and those are going to bring improved performance and good power," enthuses Goossen. "What they're not bringing any more is a good cost reduction cost per transistor - and so this has foundational impacts to console development, because now we'll get cost reductions, but they're slowing down and it won't be nearly the magnitudes that we've seen before."

 

The fact is that future nodes like 5nm and 3nm do deliver advantages then - and PC processors and GPUs along with smartphones can still benefit from those. But typically, consoles stick to the same performance profile across the generation. Goossen is essentially suggesting that leveraging these nodes for cheaper consoles may not be an option, which poses a difficult problem for the Xbox team going into the future with the intention of delivering even more powerful hardware. Processor performance is tied closely to transistor count - but if the cost per transistor is not reducing, a new chip with more logic will cost a lot more to make, even if it's actually smaller than today's processors. For the new consoles, a smaller, slimmer machine is a possibility - but the actual cost of making it won't change that much.

 

"And so that was another one of the reasons why we felt that we really had to do Series S at the beginning because we had to design for the future. For the first time, we had to have the entry-level console at the beginning. Previous generations were kind of easy because at the beginning of the generation, you make something really expensive - put as much silicon and as much performance as you could into it - then you would just ride the cost reduction curves down to mass market prices. That's not there anymore," Goossen explains.

 

I've seen some hot takes that Microsoft should respond with an immediate price cut on their own systems. I simply don't believe they'll be able to afford to do so. Their margins will already be steadily dropping away to zero due to inflation and they've got a lot of years to get through before they can launch the next system and more quietly hike the price.

[SMD]

I'm old enough to remember the flak Microsoft got for their stance before this generation started (has it even started?) and it's been very weird how honest and prescient it's all been from them.

 

Theoretically Microsoft could cut the price of the consoles and make it back by increasing the cost of their Gamepass subs and peripherals but their number nonces have probably figured that the benefits of the price cut would be outweighed by the long term impacts of increasing the price of everything else.

 

I wonder how your average gamer is going to react by probably another extension of the cross gen period and the lack of Pro versions.

[Hitcher]

I thought the point was to make money from selling games not the console!

[SeanR]

What’s £30 if you can’t buy the console anyway?

[Sumire]

I am surprised they didn't reduce the "power" of the console as well as the price.

[Stanley]

29 minutes ago, Hitcher said:

I thought the point was to make money from selling games not the console!

Don’t be giving them ideas they’ll put those up next. Oh. 

[Boozy The Clown]

10 hours ago, Sarlaccfood said:

Nah it was an underpowered machine, forced Kinect inclusion and they hardly talked about games in the reveal. It was all TV content. 
 

It was a really reluctant games machine. Hence needing to be rebooted to the One X when Phil came along.

 

 

[Down by Law]

Never underestimate the price of Playstation

 

 

 

[Alex W.]

52 minutes ago, Sumire said:

I am surprised they didn't reduce the "power" of the console as well as the price.

With these electricity prices they probably should.

 

”Britain Mode lowers the PS5’s power consumption to a mere 100 Watts, while still allowing a full-screen gaming experience.”

 

[Alex W.]

1 hour ago, Hitcher said:

I thought the point was to make money from selling games not the console!

Yeah, but they can only lose so much money on the hardware before it becomes an albatross.

[Stanley]

They are losing money on it in the States, remember. It’s just us affluent Europeans and avant-Brexiteers being asked to pay a little bit ‘extra’ like the PS Plus tier - what do you get? Fuck all 

[Siri]

5 hours ago, spanx said:

Fuck ‘em. They’ll probably still get the odd few quid out of me for their PC ports but I’m happily now getting my gaming kicks from PC and Switch. 

 

This is my take-home, really. Sony are free to add £30 to the PS5, but I wasn't going to buy the bloody thing anyway until a genuine discount and hardware revision to make it look less like an oversized Netgear router happened.

 

I get more backwards compatible games from the Steam Deck along with a snifter of PlayStation exclusive games, anyway.

[Eighthours]

1 hour ago, Hitcher said:

I thought the point was to make money from selling games not the console!

 

And if they wanted more money, they could be really cheeky and raise the prices of their games this gen to a wallet-busting £65! I'm not sure customers would pay any more than that.... oh.

[RubberJohnny]

11 hours ago, Strafe said:

The Last of Us part 1 remaster for £70, though? That’s taking the fucking piss.

 

Mentioned in another thread, but with 10% inflation for 2 years, the battle for the £60 pricepoint is probably lost, we'll be lucky if they stay at £70.

[dataDave]

12 hours ago, Oh Danny Boy said:

Videogames are such a blatant corporate entity these days that they don’t even hide ripping off the consumer anymore. I have a Series S for sea of thieves and rocket league with mates as well as the indie and old Xbox releases. But mostly I play on my Dreamcast and Megadrive and simply enjoy a more simpler era, I get more excited about a new homebrew release for a Sega console than something like Elden ring. This  winter I’ll be playing Life on Mars and Driving Strikers. 

 

I've been overjoyed with my MiSTer, PS2 and Wii that I have set up besides my work space. 100% no nonsense - just straight into the games.

 

I know the Switch is good at that too, and I've got a handful of thoroughly excellent new RPGs to play on that, but all it took was a ten minute bash on F-Zero GX and now I'm hooked on that instead.  I'm pretty certain I'd live if I never got the chance to buy another games console ever again.

 

 

[ScouserInExile]

11 hours ago, Strafe said:

I think they should have just switched to a mandatory digital game included type deal - say a voucher that gets you 1 out of Horizon FW, GT7, Returnal or Ratchet and Clank.

It's been nearly 20 years since I worked in the games industry but when I did, consoles and games followed the "razor blade model" (this was literally the term used when I was at Sony). The initial purchase - the console - was a net loss to the manufacturer: once they retailer took their cut, taxes were paid, shipping costs were covered and so on, they were sold for less than they cost to make. Where the money was made was then the accessories - the games. Every third party game sold for a console has a portion of the sale price going to the console manufacturer (recently shown to be 30% for PS5 games) with absolutely zero risk or outlay involved. Every game sold is just pure profit to Sony.

 

Giving a game away with the console as standard would be an added layer of loss to them and would defeat the purpose of the price rise.

[SMD]

6 minutes ago, ScouserInExile said:

It's been nearly 20 years since I worked in the games industry but when I did, consoles and games followed the "razor blade model" (this was literally the term used when I was at Sony). The initial purchase - the console - was a net loss to the manufacturer: once they retailer took their cut, taxes were paid, shipping costs were covered and so on, they were sold for less than they cost to make. Where the money was made was then the accessories - the games. Every third party game sold for a console has a portion of the sale price going to the console manufacturer (recently shown to be 30% for PS5 games) with absolutely zero risk or outlay involved. Every game sold is just pure profit to Sony.

 

Giving a game away with the console as standard would be an added layer of loss to them and would defeat the purpose of the price rise.

 

Apparently Sony have been making a profit on each PS5 disk edition sold since last August.