The digital edition PS5 will cost 55,000 yen
During Tuesday’s State of Play showcase, Sony announced a Japanese-language-only PlayStation 5 to be sold in Japan for 55,000 yen (about $357) starting Nov. 21. The digital edition PS5 currently retails for 72,980 yen, meaning the new price point is nearly 25% cheaper. Japan’s new PS5 model will be region-locked to Japan and will only work with a Japanese PlayStation account, according to the Financial Times.
Sony releasing a new PS5 model exclusive to Japan isn’t too dissimilar from when Nintendo released a Japanese-language Nintendo Switch 2 console for about $130 cheaper than the base version. Several factors could be at play here, like a depreciating yen and the United States’ unpredictable tariff policies, which analysts suspected were a factor in Nintendo’s Switch 2 pricing strategy.
Tariffs threw a wrinkle into the plans of every company imaginable earlier this year, including Sony, which contemplated making consoles in the U.S. A few months later in August, Sony raised the prices of PlayStation 5 consoles in the U.S. by $50 for all models (base, Digital, and Pro, which now retails for $749.99). This came after a price increase for Europe, the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand earlier in the year, which wasn’t the first time the PlayStation 5 got more expensive this generation.
Despite price increases and economic uncertainty, the PS5 is doing well by the numbers; as of Sept. 30, it’s sold more than 84 million units since its November 2020 launch.
