“You can buy a gaming PC for 120,000 yen.” Japanese people have been seeing an increasing number of advertisements worded this way in the past few days. But what else costs 120,000 yen? A PlayStation 5 Pro, as recently revealed by Sony.
The announcement of the PS5 Pro’s steep price tag has caused significant dissatisfaction both in the US and Europe, where the console will set gamers back $700 and €800 respectively. But much like European gamers, Japanese players are faced with paying even more for the console than people in the US. The 119,980-yen price point is equivalent to over $840, based on recent conversion rates.
To make matters worse, Sony recently hiked the price of standard PS5 console models in Japan. On September 2, the suggested retail price jumped from 66,980 yen (about $463) to 79,980 yen (about $552). Apart from severe backlash across social media, this decision caused the console to sell out all over the country in the days leading up to the price increase and even gave the Xbox a boost in sales.
And that’s kind of where the hidden cost of the PS5 is. Very rarely do you see the same discounts on Sony’s closed store for games.
Exactly. If we’re going to compare PS5 to PC, we need to account for:
If we limit ourselves to HW, the console will come out on top because it’s subsidized and purpose built. If we take the whole ecosystem into account, the PC most likely wins. On PC, I can play any game that has been released for it since pretty much ever, plus emulation, whereas on PS5, I’m limited to PS4 and PS5 titles. Once you upgrade, your PS5 is essentially ewaste, whereas you could probably repurpose your PC (hand it down to kids, self-hosting, etc).
I’m firmly in the PC camp, and by my math, I’m saving a lot of money vs playing on console. YMMV.
Absolutely and same here being in the PC camp, though I do have a ps5 and switch.
There is also the Steam Deck to consider as it is essentially a subsidised and purpose built PC. The benefit being that the steam deck is an open platform, that allows you to install games from other stores with some workarounds.