By: Nick Gambino
Usually when a gaming console has been around for a few years, the price goes down. But that’s not the case with PlayStation 5. Sony just announced that they are raising the price of their flagship console. And yes, it’s because of recently imposed tariffs.
The hike is reflected in every version of the PS5. The regular PS5 is jumping from $499.99 to $549.99, the PS5 Digital Edition from $449.99 to $499.99 and the PS5 Pro from $699.99 to $749.99. That’s a $50 jump across the boards. The new pricing goes into effect this week.
“Similar to many global businesses, we continue to navigate a challenging economic environment,” Isabelle Tomatis, the VP of Global Marketing at Sony, said in a blog post. “As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to increase the recommended retail price for PlayStation 5 consoles in the U.S. starting on August 21.”
While Sony didn’t directly acknowledge the tariffs in their announcement, it’s clear that this is where we’re at. President Trump has issued a large tariff plan, targeting numerous countries and that includes 30% on imports from China and 15% on imports from Japan. This puts a heavy burden on the supply chain and that trickles down to the customer in the end.
In response to tariffs, the Japanese company said they were looking to diversify their supply chain so as to not get caught out having the majority of their consoles come from one or two countries. Though, they did say the PS5 that is sold here in the U.S. isn’t even manufactured in China.
Sony isn’t the first company affected by these changes. The effects of Trump’s tariff plan have already rippled through the video game industry. Microsoft increased the price of Xbox consoles back in May while Nintendo raised the price of the original Switch and delayed pre-orders of the Switch 2. The latter was specifically attributed to tariffs. With electronics prices rising across the board, many consumers are starting to feel the impact of these policy shifts in their wallets.
Sony said they’re not planning to raise prices on PlayStation 5s in any other territory than the U.S., but honestly that’s probably because they already raised prices in Europe back in April.
Look at that, we got PlayStation 5 price hikes before GTA VI.
