The announcement made last month that PlayStation 5 would receive a recieve a price rise has seen the console get a sales spike ahead of the new pricing kicking into effect. Mat Piscatella, the senior director at Circana, went on social media to state that in the U.S., the weekly unit and dollar sales of the PS5 in 2026 reached a high during the week of April 4, 2026. The price rise for the console took effect on April 2.
Sony raised the price of the PlayStation 5, PlayStation 5 Pro, and PlayStation Portal at that time, pointing to “continued pressures in the global economic landscape,“ making a price raise “a necessary step to ensure we can continue delivering innovative, high-quality gaming experiences to players worldwide.” Vice President of Global Marketing at Sony Interactive Entertainment, Isabelle Tomatis stated this in the PlayStation Blog Post in which the price increases were announced.
Tomatis went on to say in that post:
With continued pressures in the global economic landscape, we’ve made the decision to increase the prices of PS5, PS5 Pro, and PlayStation Portal remote player globally. We know that price changes impact our community, and after careful evaluation, we found this was a necessary step to ensure we can continue delivering innovative, high-quality gaming experiences to players worldwide.
PlayStation 5 New Pricing As of April 2, 2026:
U.S.
- PS5 – $649.99
- PS5 Digital Edition – $599.99
- PS5 Pro – $899.99
U.K.
- PS5 – £569.99
- PS5 Digital Edition – £519.99
- PS5 Pro – £789.99
Europe
- PS5 – €649.99
- PS5 Digital Edition – €599.99
- PS5 Pro – €899.99
Japan
- PS5 – ¥97,980
- PS5 Digital Edition – ¥89,980
- PS5 Pro – ¥137,980
PlayStation Portal New Pricing As of April 2, 2026:
- U.S. – $249.99
- U.K. – £219.99
- Europe – €249.99
- Japan – ¥39,980
The Standard PS5, with a disc drive, saw a $100 price hike from its previous pricing. This is the same as the PS5 that does not feature the disc drive. The PS5 Pro increased in price by a staggering $150, making the already expensive $750 console now a massive $900 to purchase. The PS Portal streaming handheld increased by $50, now making it $250 instead of $200.
While there are probably multiple reasons why the console saw a sales spike, it is important to remember that Grand Theft Auto VI is still slated to release in November of this year. Estimated to have cost a whopping 2 billion dollars to develop, and it has long since been held as a game that would catalyze sales of the modern console generation, which, even before these price raises, was experiencing significantly slow sales compared to the previous.
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