The big question, still unanswered. We review everything we know about production costs and the latest information from Sony about PlayStation 5.
Sony has not yet released the price of PlayStation 5. You have to start by making it clear. With only a few days left until the beginning of March, the Japanese giant, like its great rival, Microsoft, who only a few days ago announced everything that will be Xbox Series X, have not specified how much we will have to pay to get us a PS5 in each territory. We will explain below everything we know and what we do not know about it.
Sony has not decided what the price will be PS5
If we stick to the information, to the certainties, this first February 4 officially opened the first website dedicated to PlayStation 5, a site registered by Sony Computer Entertainment accompanied by the well-known logo and a slogan: “PlayStation 5 is coming” ; that we can translate as "PlayStation 5 is on its way".
Photo: Wired
And so it is, it is on its way; but we have not seen anything from its catalog of launching videogames – here we review one by one all the confirmed videogames for the system – nor on how the machine will be aesthetically; not even his command, which promises to incorporate cutting-edge technology in haptic tasks. We can only take advantage of the five great characteristics that they revealed during CES 2020 and, in relation to the final price, to a report published by Bloomberg days ago.
$ 450 to currently manufacture each PS5 unit
According to the article published by Takashi Mochizuki, a specialized journalist who has already reported on Nintendo Switch before its launch in The Wall Street Journal, it now reveals that Sony is considering an approximate price of $ 450 to produce each PS5 unit in its entirety. This figure, above what the Japanese company would like, will in any case oblige to reduce the profit margin with every possible sale of the system.
Jim Ryan, during the PS5 presentation event held at CES 2020, Las Vegas
The problem is in the dates. Sony usually closes the price of its hardware and goes into production in the month of March of the year in which said system goes on sale (in this case, Christmas 2020), and this time they will enter the production chain without knowing the PVP price.
The components that are making the figure dance are two: the DRAM units and the NAND flash memory. Both have a very high demand, mainly from companies responsible for the manufacture of the mobile market; to highlight, the South Korean Samsung.
With high demand and low supply, the price increases and, what is worse, the estimated units may not arrive so that the price per unit is reduced. This wholesale purchase law is not going as Sony would like and, in essence, that's why the price has not yet been decided.
So how much can PlayStation 5 cost?
We do not know. We are not going to play speculation. From Bloomberg they place the price above $ 470 at least. It all depends on whether Sony is willing to sell PS5 under losses or prefer to adjust a higher price at the risk of being less attractive in major markets.
PS5
If we adjust the price of the previous PlayStation consoles at their launch to the present (inflation through), this is what they would have cost if they were launched today. These prices do not have to be representative of what PS5 will cost. (Via @notaxation)
- 1995: PlayStation – $ 511.07 ($ 299.99)
- 2000: PlayStation 2 – $ 452.21 ($ 299.99)
- 2006: PlayStation 3 – $ 779.23 ($ 599.99)
- 2013: PlayStation 4 – $ 451.15 ($ 399.99)
- 2020: PlayStation 5 – $ ???. ??
They expect 6 million units of PS5 in its first quarter
Market analysts such as Hideki Yasuda, a member of the Ace Research Institute, estimates about 6 million units shipped from PS5 by the end of the next fiscal year; that is, until March 31, 2021. This figure is very similar to what PS4 and PS3 recorded at the time these last two generations, but the number of consoles sold will depend, mainly, on what is possible to supply the existing demand.
Factors such as the Wuhan coronavirus, already in a state of worldwide alert by the WHO due to its rapid international spread, can hinder the console's production chain and, in the worst case, affect its price if that makes it difficult to supply of all the necessary parts for assembly. Basically, Sony has canceled its participation in the PAX East of Boston and the GDC of San Francisco these months of February and March, respectively. It won't be there when PlayStation 5 is revealed; neither in E3 2020 (June 9-11, California), since they will also cause cancellation for other reasons.
To know in detail everything we know about PlayStation 5, we invite you to read this report: features, developer opinions, Sony roadmap, confirmed video games …
