$900 PS5! Sony Cashes In Before GTA6 Launch

Giving it 3 points. Because Sony's price hike this time looks too greedy.

The PS5 Digital Edition is priced at $600. It has become the cheapest model in the series. The PS5 Pro jumped directly by $150. The retail price reaches $900. Is this pricing system serious? Even games back in 2008 didn't do this.

Analysts claim memory price hikes are due to high demand for AI infrastructure. The Middle East conflict and inflation are exacerbating the plight of gaming giants. To put it plainly, the costs are being passed on to players. The once mainstream $500 price point for consoles might disappear completely.

Remembering when the PS2 first came out, the price wasn't this exaggerated. Back then, buying a disc meant you could play for half a year; now, buying a console means feeling the pinch for half a year. Graphics cards back then weren't as delicate as today's consoles.

Nintendo and Xbox will most likely also raise the retail prices of their consoles. Competitors following the price hike shows this wave is a tacit understanding across the entire industry. No one wants to take the heat alone, so everyone raises prices together.

"GTA6" is releasing this year, and Sony and Xbox are counting on it to drive sales. They want to place all their bets on Los Santos. But having said that, players' wallets are not infinite.

Our generation of veteran players has been gaming since the PS1 era. We've seen too many "masterpiece of the year" titles fail. So our first reaction to new games is always skepticism. No matter how perfectly the pie is drawn, you have to taste it to know if it's delicious.

Memory and storage device prices have been rising for a long time; this hike was actually inevitable. But inevitable doesn't mean reasonable. Seeing the bill this time, I sat in my chair without moving for about two minutes. It's just that this time, it's because my wallet hurts.

If the PS3 had dared to launch at this price back in the day, I reckon I would have smashed the console already. Now even the optical drive has become an option; truly, the times have changed. There are complaints everywhere in the player community, but there is no other way except to wait. The golden age of the console market might truly be ended by this $900 price tag.