I said that some days ago in the news section already. It's pretty much like with Elon Musk and Tesla. He said that Tesla needs to increase prices (that happened more than once) because the situation is so hard and every freaking time you got new numbers from Tesla after the increases you only heard about record numbers, record profits and the best profit margin in the whole industry with like a 20% margin which is crazy for this industry. 

That they want to grow so fast to sell 20m cars in 2030 has nothing to do with the costs they have to produce my freaking car. But that's what you are supposed to pay for as well in Musk's head. He just won't say it to you like that. 

It's the same with the PS5. Sony is probably doing record numbers with the PS business and still they argue how they need to raise prices and some of their fans would still defend it even if they would hear about the highest profit Sony ever made with the PS brand.

They do it because they will still sell anything they produce so that more money is even better. Not because they have to.

These businesses aren't fully guaranteed input costs or sales. Not long term anyway.

PS5 was just starting to make a profit back then, yet the cost to produce PS5 went up shortly after, and the price to the consumer didn't. Not until recently. The changes made to PS5 saved next to nothing in material cost. Shipping weight is where there would be a little savings.

I wonder how much Sony lost that entire time? I wonder if Sony more recently looked deep ahead and see's things getting worse, knew they couldn't hold out too much longer, so decided to make the move sooner than later? Might as well rip the band aid off if you're going to have to.

Is XB and MS too greedy since they're not charging $199 and $399 for S and X? We all know they could afford to. Why isn't Game Pass cheaper? I'm pretty sure MS could've left the XB One Kinect in the box and still charged $399, matching PS4. Why did they remove Kinect then charge $399?

How much does a business have to eat or subsidize to be a good worthy company?

Material costs should not fall under the consumers problem. Also Sony and PS make billions and they will continue to make billions. Hardware is not always profitable yet for some reason this gen, Sony believes its worth raising. Pretty big coincidence that they want to raise the hardware costs while also being the one pushing that $70 games model. 

Xbox are not raising their prices neither is Nintendo and its fair to say the Series X possibly costs more to manufacture than the PS5 yet no nudge in a price hike. 

Believe what you will, however you continue to defend this, you will continue to pay more long term.

Not getting talked about with regards to this price hike: Sony’s stock has been doing poorly the last year, even by the standards of tech stocks which are all down across the board. Sony is likely having difficulty raising capital that other companies are not.


It’s no where near as bad as 07 Sony, where the corporate whole was on the brink of collapse, but it’s not good either. People talking about record profits are not taking into account the record inflation, which means in real terms profit is probably *down*, not up. Nintendo and Microsoft have the capacity to eat margin hits more than Sony does right now

Sony now focuses on profit because the Sony ps3 era lost too much money. Ps4 has only two price cuts. Ps4 success pavement the continuity of the company on the dedicated market. 

Sony tested the water with this. And know how much the scalpers selling the Ps5.

It takes materials to construct those consoles, and if materials aren't the consumers problem, then? Free consoles for everyone?

Sony launching this gen, late 2020, with a fair warning of an increase to software pricing due to rising costs of game development and game quality, vs, Sony increasing the hardware pricing almost 2 years into the gen, after a year or more of not just inflation, but rather quickly and continually rising inflation?

That's a big coincidence? I dunno bout you, but for me, if the PS5 was $529, $549, or $599, at launch, that would've been a big coincidence considering XB Series X was only $499. It would've been clear that Sony feels they can just charge more because they feel like it at that point. The Sony game price increase also isn't a coincidence, especially when you compare their first party output and quality vs XB. 

Hasn't Sony also been growing it's software development through internal growth along with acquisitions? Are they doing that all purely by choice? Is some or much of it due to competitive compulsion? Could Sony afford quick growth like that as things were?

Don't you wish we had more XB numbers so we could be more accurate in our assessments? It would be nice.

"Think of my acts as you will, but do not doubt the reality, the reclamation... has already begun".

Sorry, but that instantly popped into my head when I read your, "believe what you will" remark. It's such a great line for an ending.

As for continuing to pay more and more, not likely, but possible, though every time that happens, the competition eventually follows suit, so ya know.

This console industry has been around for decades, majority of the time (Unless you are Nintendo) hardware has always been an expense on the companies behalf. They make their money back with Subs and software sales, it has always been this way. Sony during the PS4 era recorded record profits for the entire PS brand and that's thanks to the PSN Subs and high software sales. PS5 and XSX are better designed systems which would cost more to produce however they will be making billions just in their Subs alone which can easily outweigh the console price.

No one is asking for free consoles.

Quality of games? The quality of the games has no baring here. AAA games have budgets, a game that costs $100m to make could sell less and have quality issues to another game that was made for the same $100m. That's the AAA market. Bigger investments and in most cases less return.

This feels more like Sony want in on the sculper prices and they know regardless what price they put the PS5 at, its going to continue to sell out until they get their demands sorted out. They didn't change the US price because they don't want to lose the US market to Xbox but are willing to gamble with smaller audiences and earn that extra bit of cash. This is all about the shareholders and investors wanting more money back from the brand, especially now that they have fierce competition and their dollar value it dropping. To fix that dollar value from dropping is having the customers pay for it.

The Chip bakers also feel the pressure of inflation
https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/14/intel_plans_price_hikes_for/

So the supply may be coming back, the margins aren't. And still no PS5 in stores :/

Remember Nintendo Power? What happened to that? Did Nintendo change how they do consoles? Was it always for the better? Is anyone else allowed to change?

What about Sony and online. Didn't it used to be free? Why did they start charging? Could other companies have made online free? Could it be free now?

You can't say materials shouldn't have a cost to consumers, then say consumers don't want free products. Or do consumers want companies to literally sell them nothing for a price? Seems like a worse deal than $20-$50 more for a PS5.

How often does a big budget game from Sony end up low quality with terrible sales? That may be normal for other companies, but what does XB have to do with this?

Does any company like potential profits being gobbled up by scalpers, who are hated by everyone? I haven't seen Phil say it's great for the industry, so.

The US dollar is still strong. Most products are cheaper there for that reason. Just like how most products have increased in price due to inflation.

Is XB Series X $499 USD everywhere? Nobody pays more? Why not eat those costs? Does MS think they are lesser people? 

Does MS have shareholders? Have they ever complained about XB losses? Does MS not care about the value of their company?

If the competition is so fierce and Sony is so worried, why is Sony raising the price of PS5 most places, knowingly causing this controversy?

I'd agree with you if Sony caused inflation, while MS did not, but I don't believe that's the case. 

Let me answer all your dot points with one sentence. "Be better to raise prices, don't just raise prices." If you don't understand, let me explain.

Everything you have mentioned has improved which justify the prices. Example: PSN use to be free, it also use to be crap. They improved upon the service and now charge for it. Nintendo Power? Removing things does not cost the customers more. You have zero point with that example.

Quality games can come from all price ranges. Just because a game is quality doesn't mean it costs more. Xbox invest just as much in their big titles like Sony does. $100m budget game is still a $100m budget game.

Things can change, however change for the better and charge more if necessary. Sony is giving you the exact same PS5 model for more, zero improvements and infact even less PS5 since they are reducing the weight of it. Why not increase the storage space slightly, or give a little bit more to help justify it.

Sony has given the rest of the world the middle finger by raising the price while keeping the same price in the US even though the US suffers similar issues the rest of the world suffers. Want to know why? Because Sony has to keep good faith with the largest gaming community in the world, if they piss off the US they will lose too much market share. 

Sony also has to do better than last gen to please Shareholders, a much harder feat than Xbox with the Series X/S. And you are paying for it. 

If you disagree, disagree. At the end of the day, you are paying someone else's pockets and supporting it makes you part of the problem. Remember one thing, Sony and PS are still making Millions upon Billions. Maybe not as much as last gen but are still profiting. Instead of eating the cost like most companies do, they want you to pay more.