A luxury edition, at a luxury price. The PlayStation 5 Pro, high-end version of the famous Sony console, arrives in France and Europe on Thursday November 7. More powerful, “impressive graphics”with more beautiful images and better resolution, this new generation of Playstation promises progress, according to an article from the official PlayStation blog.
Sony has also announced that 50 improved games will be available upon release of the console, which will not be equipped with a disc reader. Sold precisely for 799.99 euros on the European market, or 250 euros more than its little sister, the PS5 Pro is a reflection of the general rise in prices in the sector of new technologies.
The expensive price of the latest console puts off more than one, like this player interviewed in the streets of Tokyo by AFP: “I don’t want to spend money like that to buy a console.” In France, potential players are not more motivated than that either. According to a survey carried out at the end of September by FrAndroid, a site specializing in purchasing guides for high-tech products, half of the respondents said they did not want to buy the console because of its price.
This clear increase in the price of the Sony console is described as a “challenge from a marketing point of view”in a note from Junya Ayada, analyst at JP Morgan bank. “It’s the most powerful console we’ve ever built.”for his part justified Mark Cerny, the main architect of the Japanese group's consoles since the Playstation 4, during an online presentation.
This is not the first time that Sony has increased the price of its products. Already in August 2022, the Japanese group announced an increase of 10 to 12.5% in the selling prices of its PlayStation 5 consoles to cope with inflation and the pressure suffered. “by many industrial sectors”.
This price surge is “a general trend, which concerns all electronic devices, whether phones, video games, virtual reality headsets or connected watches”underlines Jack Leathem, analyst at Canalys, a research firm specializing in technology markets.
According to him, several reasons explain this general increase in market prices: new technologies which are increasingly cutting edge, the price of components, raw materials such as rare metals, which are also experiencing a sharp increase and the cost for companies in the sector to increasingly integrate artificial intelligence.
Despite everything, with its promised improvements and its positioning compared to increasingly expensive gaming PCs, the PS5 Pro should experience some success.
