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ConservagameR on 07 September 2022
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the-pi-guy said:
Bofferbrauer2 said:

If anything, this puts some pressure on AMD, the chip designer, as they're the ones dealing with TSMC, not Sony. But I agree that it's possible AMD will pass the higher costs down to Sony.

Still, that would only be ~$10 per chip, and only starting sometime next year. Raising the prices now is not related to increased chip prices, as TSMC last raised the prices in summer last year.

The biggest reason really seems to be down to the exchange rate, seeing as by and large most of the consoles are now roughly equivalent to $500 USD, give or take some error for taxes. 

But I don't agree that the timing is an issue. Raising the price of a console is not a good move regardless of how the console is doing. They're not going to increase a price at the first sign of anything, they're going to wait until they're pretty sure of there being challenges. 

If AMD passes the price on, they are not going to have an immediate reaction to that. They're going to start looking at things like market trends and do quite a bit of analysis to determine whether they should, how much, etc. 

Same thing with the market exchange rates, they would be more likely to wait a bit to see if things stabilize before making the big decision to start raising prices, which historically is a rare thing for consoles. 

Sony has waited long enough, if they see a future where inflation continues to get worse, now is the time to increase.

Imagine if Sony drops a PS5 Slim holiday 2023 for $450. Gamers will rage because PS5 is only $500. The higher the price of the PS5, the higher the Slim can be while not being seen as price gouging. Same goes for a Pro, if it comes, because it would end up crazy expensive regardless. The higher the price of a PS5 now, the more they can charge for a Pro later and make it seem as normal as possible by creating the new norm now.

The US is the only place where prices may remain lower than others due to their economy and being the XB stronghold.