At the start of this week you could snag a used Xbox Series S in the U.S. for around $250. Just days later, Microsoft hiked the price of new Series S units to $380, and the Series X all the way to $600. The tech giant blamed “market conditions,” AKA President Trump’s trade war with China. But tariffs will come for all the gaming consoles unless they’re reversed. It’s only a matter of time before a PlayStation 5 also jumps in price.
“I need to stress what you’re seeing here is just the beginning,” predicted Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad after Microsoft announced its Xbox price increases. “Sony will be impacted by the same tariffs, and we’ve already seen them raise prices elsewhere to offset the impact. Nintendo did not raise prices as it’s manufacturing in Vietnam, but could if tariffs increase.”
An all-digital PS5 is currently $450. A PS5 with a disc drive is $500. A PS5 Pro is $700. If Sony matched Microsoft’s changes in the U.S., the cheapest PS5 would all of the sudden cost $550 with the PS5 Pro up to as much as $800. Maybe Sony will use this opportunity to undercut Microsoft, or maybe, having already dominated this console generation, it will have less incentive to eat the cost of some of the tariffs. It’s unclear when current PS5 inventory will be depleted, forcing its hand one way or the other, if Trump doesn’t back down.
The best deal on a PS5 at the moment is the Astro Bot bundle which includes the $60 GOTY winner and a disc-less slim model for just $400 (there’s also a $450 version if you want a disc drive). Not bad for a box that will let you play Grand Theft Auto 6 when it hits in May 2026 and will likely last you well into the PlayStation 6 console generation rumored to begin as early as 2027.
Anyone waiting to pull the trigger on a PS5 Pro also might want to reconsider. While the upgrade arguably isn’t worth the premium price tag for many, upcoming releases like Death Stranding 2 and Ghost of Yotei will likely be able to take full advantage of the higher performance power. Or you could wait until Black Friday when a potential bundle might cost as much as $850.
Early adopters of next-gen consoles usually get a raw deal. They pay full price for hardware designs that still have some kinks in them and access to lackluster launch games. But anyone who bought a PS5 or Xbox Series X back in 2020 ended up getting the consoles at their cheapest (and fortunately mine haven’t faced any major technical hiccups in the four years I’ve owned them). Long gone are the days of the PS3 getting a slim edition that also costs less, or Nintendo marking down GameCubes to just $100 each.
Instead, the Switch 2 is likely to be the latest new console to only get more expensive as time goes on, unless “market conditions” materially change sometime soon. Pre-orders for $500 bundles that include Mario Kart World might look like a steal if the company is forced to raise prices in the fall, should Trump let the current pause on Vietnam tariffs expire as it’s currently scheduled to. At the very least, the Switch 2 will probably never be less expensive than it is now. After all, we went eight years without the original Switch ever dropping its $300 launch price.
So if you were planning to grab a new PS5 in the next year you might not want to wait. Whether you’re finally upgrading from a PS4 or hopping into the ecosystem for the first time, the deals are probably only going to get much worse from here on out.
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