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The PS5 price is being increased in Australia, Europe, Japan but not USA

Sony is increasing the PS5 price in Australia, Europe and Japan amongst others – reportedly due to rising inflation. Which would be worrying if anyone could actually buy one.

Sony have recently announced that the PS5 price will be increasing to match rising inflation in many of their most prominent markets. However, considering that price is only the first hurdle in acquiring a PlayStation 5, this news is likely to be met with a bit of a shrug.

We have already documented how difficult it has been to get one’s hands on a new PS5 in Australia, without going through the dodgy task of dealing with a scalper. Nonetheless, humans rarely respond well to increasing prices for goods they want.

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Image: PlayStation / Sony

The full list of countries that will experience a PS5 price increase are as follows: Australia, Europe, UK, Japan, China, Mexico and Canada. Noticeably absent is, of course, the United States of America, who have at this stage dodged the price hike.

In a statement on the official PlayStation Blog, the decision was made for the following reason:

While this price increase is a necessity given the current global economic environment and its impact on SIE’s business, our top priority continues to be improving the PS5 supply situation so that as many players as possible can experience everything that PS5 offers and what’s still to come.

I guess the silver lining to this situation is the increase will first hit the scalpers that have been the bane on many prospective PS5 owners since the console launched. Although at this stage many of them probably have a deep enough stockpile to outlast the economic crash.

The PS5 price increases aren’t all entirely equal either, and the rationale for different prices hasn’t been fully explained by Sony. Below is a list of the affected countries, along with the individual increases.

  • Europe (+€50)
    • PlayStation 5 with disc drive – €549.99
    • PlayStation 5 Digital Edition – €449.99
  • United Kingdom (+£30)
    • PlayStation 5 with disc drive – £479.99
    • PlayStation 5 Digital Edition – £389.99
  • Japan (+5,000 yen) (effective September 15, 2022)
    • PlayStation 5 with disc drive – 54,980 yen
    • PlayStation 5 Digital Edition – 44,980 yen
  • China (+400 yuan)
    • PlayStation 5 with disc drive – 4,299 yuan
    • PlayStation 5 Digital Edition – 3,499 yuan
  • Australia (+AUD $50)
    • PlayStation 5 with disc drive – AUD $799.95
    • PlayStation 5 Digital Edition – AUD $649.95
  • Mexico (+MXN $1,000)
    • PlayStation 5 with disc drive – MXN $14,999
    • PlayStation 5 Digital Edition – MXN $12,499
  • Canada (+CAD $20)
    • PlayStation 5 with disc drive – CAD $649.99
    • PlayStation 5 Digital Edition – CAD $519.99

Reportedly, Microsoft will not increase the prices of their Xbox consoles.