Home Gaming The PlayStation 5’s pricing will be “appealing to gamers”

The PlayStation 5’s pricing will be “appealing to gamers”

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Yesterday, out of nowhere, Sony revealed the first real details of its next-generation console. From the non-technical description offered by Wired, it sounds like one heck a machine. The PlayStation 5 (or whatever it ends up being called) will be built on AMD’s impending Zen 2 architecture, which is one heck of a step up from the Jaguar architecture that’s in the current consoles (even the new Xbox One X and PS4 Pro). It’ll also be powered by AMD’s upcoming Navi GPU. While we don’t quite know how much RAM the machine will have, some reports suggest it’ll pack 24GB of the stuff.

According to lead architect Mark Cerny, the thing will also have a very fast SSD that’ll bring load times down to nothing. While that does raise questions about upgradeability of the drive or support for external storage, it also makes the whole thing sound very, very expensive. While that sort of pricing information was left out of Wired’s article, it was part of the interview, and according to Cerny the PS5 will be “appealing to gamers in light of its advanced feature set.”

That doesn’t really make it sound any less expensive. Some early reports suggest the machine will cost $499 – with Sony making a loss of at least $100 on every unit. That puts ahead of the $399 launch price for the PS4 (and the PS4 Pro), and more in line with the PS3’s launch price of $499 for the base version, and $599 for the premium one (Get a second job!).

The $399 PS4 launch price seems to have been a sweet spot that’s seen the company become the dominant player this gen. $499 for a high-end machine is still palatable, but if this thing launches at $599 it’s going to be one tough sell.

Last Updated: April 17, 2019

11 Comments

  1. Kikmi

    April 17, 2019 at 12:09

    I cant wait to play games at 8k…. LOL

    Reply

    • Geoffrey Tim

      April 17, 2019 at 12:30

      Lol not a chance.

      Reply

      • Nikola

        April 17, 2019 at 12:37

        Why do you always have to be so negative…

        Reply

        • Tsugaru

          April 17, 2019 at 13:08

          It won’t play at 8K lol, movies etc sure. Games, no ways.

          Reply

  2. HairyEwok

    April 17, 2019 at 12:09

    Shouldn’t be too hard, if PC gamers can cough up $699 for a graphics card then it should be easy peasy for console wallets. Just sell a kidney, what’s the worst that can happen. https://media0.giphy.com/media/u0LxmF9QVeDoQ/giphy.gif

    Reply

    • HvR

      April 17, 2019 at 12:16

      Only Kromas the rest of us settle for $300 cards

      Reply

  3. Deon Du Plessis

    April 17, 2019 at 12:16

    The predicted pricing doesn’t seem right to me. How on earth can Sony charge less than $599 for a console that (presumably) does 8K @ 30fps, with a solid-state drive so fast that it chops 14.2 seconds off Spiderman’s 15s fast-travel load time, incorporating (possibly) 24GB of system memory, and still make a profit??

    I reckon it’ll launch at a far higher price than any games console in history. Surely it has to, else Sony is eating a massive loss per unit sold, and that doesn’t make business sense as I’m pretty sure there’s no need for Sony to be a loss leader to attract customers.

    Guess we’ll see.

    Reply

    • HvR

      April 17, 2019 at 12:23

      Console sold at a loss is nothing new, PS3 sold for $200 less than the materials cost per console at launch

      PS4 was sold for about its materials cost, taking assembly and shipping into account it was effectively sold at a loss as well.

      Reply

    • Geoffrey Tim

      April 17, 2019 at 12:30

      I wouldn’t expect it to be 8K for anything other than movies. RAM and SSD pricing is in freefall. they may have secured some pretty good deals with AMD for the internals. also, it’ll be a loss leader, for sure.

      Reply

  4. CodeDisQus

    April 17, 2019 at 14:23

    The next gen is going to be so so interesting, All 3 companies are in extremely healthy positions. Nintendo is doing its own thing admittedly but still!. Xbox is on a role, the only thing they don’t have going for them is games to give you a reason to shell out the money. Playstation has a huge market lead and flowing on a wave of trust. Can’t wait for it all……

    And then for me to wait for the revised console so that I can get a great bundle for cheap and all buy 2nd hand games for R200!

    Reply

  5. HvR

    April 17, 2019 at 12:24

    So this could easily be a R12000 to R14000 console the way the SA market and Rand is going.

    Guess Gavin would need to do all the reviews since it $599 is dinner and movie for him,

    Reply

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