PS5 at Six: The Console That Got More Expensive With Age

Six years ago today, on November 12, 2020, Sony launched the PlayStation 5 in the US, Japan and several other markets. It cost $499.99, or $399.99 for the Digital Edition without a disc drive. People queued online for hours and still went home empty-handed, as a global chip shortage made the console hard to find for more than a year.

On its sixth birthday, the PS5 is easy to find but much more expensive. Since April 2, 2026, the standard PS5 has cost $649.99 in the US, the Digital Edition $599.99 and the PS5 Pro $899.99. In Japan the standard model is ¥97,980, nearly double its launch price. In Korea, prices rose from May 1, 2026 to 948,000 won for the standard model and 1,298,000 won for the Pro.

A console that broke the old rule

For most of console history, hardware got cheaper as it aged. Manufacturing improved, chips shrank, and platform holders cut prices to reach new buyers. The PS2, PS3 and PS4 all became significantly cheaper over their lives.

The PS5 has gone the other way. Its price rises, step by step:

• November 2020: launch at $499.99 (disc) and $399.99 (Digital) in the US.
• August 2022: Sony raises prices in Europe, the UK, Japan and other markets, citing inflation and economic conditions, but leaves the US unchanged.
• November 2024: the PS5 Pro launches at $699.99, without a disc drive.
• August 2025: the first US rise, $50 on every model, taking the PS5 to $549.99, the Digital Edition to $499.99 and the Pro to $749.99.
• April 2026: the biggest rise yet, $100 on the standard and Digital models and $150 on the Pro.

Why prices keep rising

Sony's official explanation for the April 2026 rise was "continued pressures in the global economic landscape," and it called the change a "necessary step to ensure we can continue delivering innovative, high-quality gaming experiences."

Behind that is the memory crisis. The PS5 uses 16GB of GDDR6 memory, and AI data centres have pushed memory prices up dramatically since late 2025. DRAM contract prices had reportedly risen more than 170% year on year by the time of Sony's announcement. US tariffs added pressure in 2025, which was also the year Microsoft raised Xbox prices twice.

Sony also raised the price of the PlayStation Portal remote player in April, to $249.99 in the US.

What a PS5 owner gets for the money

The price rises arrive late in the console's life, when the library is at its strongest. The PS5 has years of exclusive and multiplatform games behind it, and Grand Theft Auto VI, due on November 19, 2026 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, is expected to bring a wave of new players to both consoles.

For people who already own one, the rises change nothing. For people still deciding, it means the cheapest new PS5 now costs more than a Nintendo Switch 2.

Why it matters

The PS5 is the first PlayStation to be meaningfully more expensive in its sixth year than at launch. That changes the economics of the console business: platform holders can no longer rely on falling prices to reach the late buyers who usually arrive in a console's final years.

WGC's take: if you have been waiting for a PS5 price cut, do not hold your breath. With memory prices expected to stay high into 2027 and beyond, the current price may be the best one for a while. For the full story, read our long read on the RAM crisis.