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  • Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki recently made a non-committal statement about raising the price of the PlayStation 5.
  • Analysts believe that consumers have nothing to fear and that the PS5 will remain the same price for the foreseeable future.
  • Other electronics may be a different story altogether.

Lifewire / Andrew Hayward



Continued inflation in consumer tech prices, along with new comments from Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki, have led to speculation that the PlayStation 5 will see a price hike this year, but analysts aren’t ready to get into the gossip.


As manufacturers grapple with the ongoing shortage of semiconductors, consumers have faced both supply chain issues and overpriced price tags in the first half of 2022. Things are slowly starting to pick up, but as evidenced by the recent Meta Quest 2 price hike, we’re not out of the woods just yet. Comments from Sony’s CFO Hiroki Totoki only added fuel to the fire, as the CEO answered a shareholder question about a possible PS5 price increase by stating that “there’s nothing specific.” [he] can share… about prizes.” It’s an ominous answer, although it doesn’t sound like gamers have much to worry about.


“There has never been a lifecycle price hike for consoles without hardware change,” Mark Methenitis, an analyst and attorney in the video game industry, told Lifewire via Twitter. “It seems extremely unlikely that Sony would want to be the only outlier.”



Sony can’t afford a price hike

Unlike the Meta Quest 2, which dominates the VR market, the PlayStation 5 does not set record numbers. As shared by Benji-Salesan independent games analyst, PlayStation’s profits fell 37 percent in the first quarter of 2022. This is caused by a combination of factors (such as the ongoing supply shortage and lackluster game sales), but it all leads to the same conclusion: Sony just can’t afford to raise prices.


William D’Angelogames analyst at VGChartznotes that Xbox is already gaining ground on PlayStation, with Xbox Series X jumping to 24.3 percent of the market share, compared to just 15.6 percent in 2021. That puts it just below the PS5’s 25.7 percent market share , with the possibility of catching up at the end of the year.


Microsoft



With such a narrow margin separating the two platforms (and disappointing recent PS5 sales performance), a price hike in 2022 isn’t the best move from a financial standpoint.


A price hike could do more than push gamers to Xbox, as it could also cause serious backlash in the community. Even a cursory glance at Twitter and other gaming forums is enough to know that fans aren’t thrilled about a potential price hike.


The standard PS5 console already clocks in at $500, a number compounded by the rising cost of groceries, gasoline and other everyday purchases. Pushing it higher could help Sony improve its bottom line, but there could be stronger impacts from its fans.


“I don’t think this is a PR position Sony would want to take right now,” Methenitis told Lifewire.



(Some) technology is getting more and more expensive

While experts seem to agree that we’re safe from a PS5 price hike, the same isn’t true for the rest of the tech sector. Smartphones, earbuds, cameras and other electronics have already seen inflated prices in 2022. It seems unlikely that that trend will improve in the second half of the year, although it’s hard to say which specific products will be affected.


Japan, in particular, has seen price increases for a variety of electronics and home appliances, although Methenitis points out that this was largely caused by the “loss in value of the yen rather than pure inflation problems”.


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Numerous factors come into play, but the recent Meta Quest 2 price hike proves that wallets in the United States are still at risk. Meta increased its prices by a whopping $100 this month, marking the biggest price hike in VR headset history. On the other side of the coin is the GPU shortage, which has been largely remedied and led to widespread availability and better pricing.


Figuring out which products will hold steady and which will see price increases isn’t easy, and it sounds like we’ll have to live with constant price adjustments for quite some time. In other words, it might be best to postpone that big purchase until the industry begins to stabilize.


“Right now, in the tech industry, we’re still seeing some pretty unprecedented supply chain issues,” Methenitis told Lifewire. “While some of those seem to be finally sorting themselves out (GPUs are finally available in reasonable numbers, for example), others seem likely to continue into next year.”