As we were all getting hyped by the possible announcement of the PS5 Pro on Sony’s September 10 showcase, some have noticed that many top US retailers have raised the price of the DualSense by $5.
These retailers include PlayStation Direct, Best Buy, and Target. The price hike affects every color of the base PlayStation 5 controller, which was already being sold for a very hefty $70. Similar price bumps are being reported in other regions, too.
This generation began in the weirdest-ever way for Sony, as scalpers made getting a PS5 in the first year of the console’s existence a pretty daunting task, but things haven’t exactly gotten amazing since. Despite the scalper issue being long gone, the PS5 is probably the only console in existence to get more expensive in retail as time goes by. The latest version of the PS5, the PS5 Slim, had its digital and supposedly cheaper version retailing at $50 higher than the original digital version. That’s a mere $50 dollars less than the “expensive” disc version.
For comparison’s sake, in three years, the PS3 went from its original price of $599 to $299 for its 500GB model. Similarly, three years after the release of the original PS4, the slim model came out priced at $100 dollars less at $300. The smaller decrease in price could be foretelling of a dire trend going forward, though the PS4 was never as expensive as the PS3. Still, I doubt anyone could’ve predicted aging but still readily-available hardware to be getting all sorts of price hikes.
These seemingly small changes start to bear some weight when you pair them with the price increase of the PS Plus subscription of last year, and might begin to feel rather hurtful the owners of a console with so few exclusives.
There’s not any reprieve on the other side of the aisle either, as Microsoft has increased the price of the Xbox Series X in some countries. Here’s hoping that the upcoming tech showcase and other rumored news at least offers some more reasons to spend this kind of cash.
Published: Sep 9, 2024 02:15 pm