Sony Announces PlayStation 5 Price Increases in the US

Sony just announced that it’s raising the price of all PlayStation 5 consoles in the US starting tomorrow, August 21. All models will get a $50 price bump, and as a result, the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition will now start at $499.99.

“Similar to many global businesses, we continue to navigate a challenging economic environment. 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,” Sony said in the announcement.

Here are the PlayStation 5 prices that will be effective starting on August 21:

• PlayStation 5 with disc drive – $549.99 (previously $499.99)
• PlayStation 5 Digital Edition – $499.99 (previously $449.99)
• PlayStation 5 Pro – $749.99 (previously $699.99).

It’s worth noting that the PS5 Digital Edition is still cheaper than Microsoft’s $549.99 Xbox Series X Digital Edition. The regular Xbox Series X with a disc drive is also $50 more expensive than the standard PS5 at $599.99. However, the $729.99 2TB Galaxy Black Special Edition Series X is now $30 cheaper than the PlayStation 5 Pro, but the latter also has 2TB of storage and is more powerful.

Overall, this console generation is quite unique as consoles are getting more expensive throughout their lifecycle. While this is due in part to Trump’s tariffs, we didn’t see current-gen consoles getting cheaper before this new administration came in. This doesn’t bode well for the PlayStation 6 and next-gen Xbox, which may well be even more expensive at launch.