If you haven’t bought a PlayStation 5 yet, you’re now on a time limit before the console gets even more expensive. Sony blamed “continued pressures in the global economic landscape” for boosting the cost of its PlayStation 5, PS5 Pro, and even its PlayStation Portal remote player and game streaming device. The end result: gamers are cooked.
Starting on April 2, all PS5 models will cost at least $150 more than they did at launch in 2020 when the console launched. The PlayStation 5 Digital Edition will cost $600. The PS5 with a disc drive will demand $650. If you want the cream-of-the-crop console, the PlayStation 5 Pro, you need to spend $900. That’s $200 more than its $700 starting price when the console launched in 2024. You still need to buy an extra $80 disc drive if you hope to play your back catalog of physical PS4 and PS5 games on the Pro-level console.
Here’s the full breakdown for U.S. customers:
- PS5 Digital Edition – $599.99
- PS5 – $649.99
- PS5 Pro – $899.99
- PlayStation Portal – $249.99
As for the PlayStation Portal, it will cost $250 for U.S. customers, up from $200. Sony has been routinely updating its remote player since launch close to three years ago. Now, it supports game streaming and the ability to play games at 1080p in a new “high-quality” mode. You still need a full PS5 console to get the most out of the remote player, but now, if you want both, it will cost you at least $850.
“We know that price changes impact our community, and after careful evaluation, we found this was a necessary step to ensure we can continue delivering innovative, high-quality gaming experiences to players worldwide,” Sony said in its blog post.
Gamers are getting screwed
Sony’s last PS5 price hike in 2025 made the PS5 console with a disc drive cost $550. The new PS5 starting price is no longer cheaper than a $650 Xbox Series X console. The real blow is the cost of a PS5 Pro. Now, you need to spend close to $1,000 just to play games with the recent PSSR upscaling update. At $750, it was the best bang-for-your-buck console for playing the latest AAA games. It’s a much tougher pill to swallow now that it costs $200 more than at launch.
Sony’s reference to “high-quality gaming experiences” likely doesn’t include a new “dynamic pricing” scheme that reportedly offers different discounts to players on games in the PlayStation Store. Essentially, those who have a record of spending more in Sony’s digital storefront can expect to see worse sales than players who spend less. Sony has not acknowledged dynamic pricing, yet. However, players online have noted these various prices depending on what account they’re signed into.
Guessing PSN has dynamic pricing on the North American PSN Store Now. People are seeing $39.59, while I see $26.99. Sorry about that.
Will need to log out and in now. Thanks Sony. https://t.co/TJcELO53v4 pic.twitter.com/anaL4BC0Ez
— Cheap Ass Gamer (@videogamedeals) March 25, 2026
Sony is raising prices all across the globe as a likely reaction to the ongoing memory shortage. The major memory semiconductor companies have shifted their entire business to supplying high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for AI data centers, leading to a massive shortage for consumer devices. This has ballooned the prices of SSDs and RAM across the board. Major PC and laptop manufacturers have routinely raised the cost of devices since late last year.
Don’t expect a new PS6 anytime soon
Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported Sony was considering delaying release of its still-unannounced next-gen console—likely a PlayStation 6—due to the RAM shortage. Sony may push whatever’s coming next to 2028 or later. Nobody seems to have any specifics about how long the memory shortage could last. The chairman of major memory maker SK Hynix, Chey Tae-won, recently said the company may not be able to meet demand for consumer RAM until “around” 2030.
This is not how gadgets are supposed to age. In every other console generation, the gear became cheaper as time went on. The major console makers would supply mid-generation refreshes with updated hardware to boost sales. Now, both the original and updated hardware cost hundreds of dollars more than they did at launch. With games getting more expensive as well, gamers are being priced out of the hobby they love.
