Sony might be following the footsteps of Nintendo, and the PlayStation 5 might be getting its price increased (and we’re not talking about inflation or bad currency-related price hikes).

Nintendo will release the Switch OLED with a 50-dollar/euro higher price in October, even though it doesn’t have many technical upgrades (a 0.8″ bigger OLED display, a wider stand, and an Ethernet port on the dock…), so a price increase doesn’t seem much reasonable. However, Sony is reported „closely monitoring” its situation, and so, it might be pushing up the price of the PlayStation somewhat… which then would lead to an even bigger profit margin on each console sale, as the demand is high.

The Japan Times‘ article mentions that most of the industry has its eyes set on the big N, which could be kicking off a trend here, where manufacturers can release a new model of their product with very minimal upgrades. Ace Research Institute analyst Hideki Yasuda says Nintendo’s experiment with the Switch OLED pricing model „could set a precedent for charging more across the industry.” The Japan Times also spoke with an anonymous individual within the PlayStation division at Sony, and they indicated that the company is „closely monitoring the market response” to the new Switch OLED.

If Sony does end up increasing the PlayStation 5’s price (which already has its first-party, internally developed titles come with a 70 USD/EUR price tag, which is also used by a few multiplatform games’ next-gen versions…), then they might see a small reduction in demand from regions where the financial situation isn’t as good as in the developed Western countries. However, it might also lead to PlayStation 5 scalpers pushing the price even higher for the consoles.

The latter scenario can be dodged by PlayStation Direct, which will allow direct-to-customer sales even in Western Europe this year.

Source: PSL