Sony has refused to rule out a PS5 price increase as the inflation crisis looks set to hit the processing industry over the next twelve months.
In Sony’s most recent earnings call, the company was questioned about whether the hard-to-get console could be harder to afford in the months to come.
In response to a question about whether an increase in the price of some of the company’s other home entertainment products could lead to the prized cow also becoming more expensive £449/£349 tag.
“About a potential price increase for the PS5, at this point in time there is nothing specific I can share with you about prices,” said Sony’s executive deputy president and chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki.
The comments, transcribed by the good folks at VCG, were not a denial or confirmation, but it seems like something Sony isn’t ruling out at this point.
Elsewhere, Sony said has sold 21.7 million PS5 consoles thus far, including 2.4 million in the three months leading up to June 30. That quarter also included 47.1 million PlayStation games, 79% of which were digital sales the company said. Bad news for the High Street.
Sony also revealed there was “a much lower level of engagement” than it had anticipated, meaning gamers are playing less than they were a year ago (via Game Developer). The company says this may be due to people actually being able to do other things, now Covid restrictions are a thing of the past.
As for the future outlook, Sony says it is hoping the supply chain issues that have made the PS5 so hard to get during its first 18 months or so on sale, could be completely resolved in the near future.
“There were two big constraints that we were imposed with. One was the parts and components availability, the other was the supply chain. With the parts and components availability there are a lot of improvements so we are very hopeful, quite optimistic about that.
“For supply chain disruption, we actually took quite a hit in the first quarter. In the first quarter, hardware volume for sales were quite smaller than we expected at the beginning of the year, so supply chain disruption is something that we hope will be completely addressed.”
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