PS5 Price Prediction
As we mentioned at the beginning of this post. All of this is really just a rough estimate, and when we say rough, we mean really rough. Consumer prices and those that Sony will pay when mass-purchasing components will differ. However, knowing the rough costing of ray-tracing tech, an SSD, and an idea of what’s being packed into the controller can help give us an idea of where Sony will put the PS5 price point.
On just the components we’ve discussed here alone, the costing at consumer price would roughly be around $720. That’s way over what many players would realistically pay for new hardware, even at launch.
There are things to consider though. First off, the ray-tracing hardware based on AMD’s Navi GPU may not be quite as powerful as even entry-level NVIDIA cards right now and thus might cost less. The DualShock 5 will likely be tossed into the hardware SKU at no extra cost, and Sony utilizing its own 4K Blu-Ray drives could massively reduce that $720 price point, too.
Additionally, it’s worth taking into account that Sony will likely be willing to take a huge hit on the PS5 hardware itself in order to entice players to hop into the ecosystem. Manufacturers rarely make a profit on hardware when it initially releases, with costs and, in turn price, dropping as more efficient manufacturing methods are utilized.
That loss is worth swallowing to get players into the ecosystem, though, paying $60 for PlayStation Plus, purchasing software and additional accessories that’ll help to recoup that initial hit to profit.
As such, despite the somewhat outlandish figure my bit of research on the new PS5 details suggest, I actually think it’s more likely we’ll see something around the PS4’s initial price point of $399 / £349.99. This was the sweet spot that sold many players on the system when it was first announced, and gave it the initial edge on the Xbox One at $499.
So there you have it, a PS5 price of $399 is our prediction, but what do you think it’ll total to? Let us know in the comments below.
