The PS5 Will Sell at Suggested Retail Price

Earlier, we reported that the specs for the upcoming PlayStation 5 had been revealed to the world, giving us our very first look at the next generation of gaming consoles. The specs were strong and hefty, which is a pretty good indication that Sony does not have the same “streaming platform” ambitions that Google has, but it doesn’t mean some kind of streaming service is off the table. Regardless of all that, however, there was one critical bit of information missing from the PS5 hardware release: the price. It’s all well and good for a new console to drop, after all, but if it costs too much, then it could spit out free unicorn hair every morning and people still wouldn’t use it.

No, I don’t know where I got “unicorn hair” from.

In any case, we still don’t have an exact price on the damn thing, but Wired senior correspondent Peter Rubin went on Twitter to address this issue with an unpublished part of his initial interview regarding the PS5, and he gave this vague but not unhelpful little clip:

Rubin: There's always been a general range of launch pricing. Will the next console hew to that range?
Cerny: I believe that we will be able to release it at an SRP [suggested retail price] that will be appealing to gamers in light of its advanced feature set.
Rubin: Meaning that it may cost a bit more but what you're getting is well worth it?
Cerny: That's about all I can say about it.

Sony rather famously sold the PS4 at a $60 USD loss when it first came out, expecting to make up that lost revenue with first-party games and the PlayStation plus subscription fees. It worked out for them well enough, and I really wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to pull that again.

But we’ll have to wait until later this year to find out more.