While most stories about price increases in the past few weeks have been US-based, yesterday’s PlayStation 5 price hike announcement from Sony only applies to the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and other select markets in the Middle East and Africa.
Citing “a challenging economic environment,” Sony has upped the RRP of the digital edition PS5 in Europe and the UK and increased the RRP for both the standard and digital editions in Australia and New Zealand.
Here’s the table from Sony’s blog post:
| Location | New price (after increase) |
|---|---|
| Europe | PS5 Digital Edition – €499.99 |
| UK | PS5 Digital Edition – £429.99 |
| Australia | Standard PS5 with disc drive – AUD $829.95, PS5 Digital Edition – AUD $749.95 |
| New Zealand | Standard PS5 with disc drive – NZD $949.95, PS5 Digital Edition – NZD $859.95 |
The prices, which are effective starting today, have increased by 10 to 15% depending on the product and the location. Interestingly, the company has decreased the price of the disc drive accessory available for the digital edition consoles and made no changes at all to the PS5 Pro prices.
Officially, Sony has only provided “high inflation and fluctuating exchange rates” as reasons for the increases, with no mention of the U.S. tariffs. The company raised prices for this reason before in 2022, so there is a chance that this price hike is not directly related to Trump’s tariffs.
An analyst speaking to CNBC, however, expects Sony will raise prices in the U.S. eventually once it’s more clear where the tariffs are headed.
Other speculation includes the possibility that Sony is preparing to spread the cost of the tariffs across different regions to keep the console as affordable as possible for consumers in the United States. Because the situation with the tariffs is still evolving, it’s impossible to say what the final outcome will be for U.S. consumers at this time.
