Sony Announces PS5 Pricing: $499 For Regular Console, $399 For Digital Edition
by Ryan Smith on September 16, 2020 5:10 PM EST
At Sony’s PlayStation 5 Showcase this afternoon, the final (and much awaited) pieces of the puzzle with regards to the console’s launch have dropped: pricing and a release date.
Sony’s next-generation console will launch on Thursday, November 12th. The full version of the console, which includes a Blu-ray disc drive, will launch at $499. Meanwhile the “Digital Edition” of the console, which foregoes optical storage entirely, will release for a surprising $399, a full $100 cheaper despite only giving up a disc drive.
This will put Sony’s launch 2 days after Microsoft’s own Xbox Series X/S launch, which is taking place on Tuesday, November 10th. The $499 price tag for the two companies’ respective flagship consoles will put them in direct competition, while the PS5 Digital Edition/Xbox Series S divide should prove far more interesting – if not a bit frustrating for consumers trying to make the best choice. The discless PS5 is every bit as powerful as its disc-capable sibling – making it a spoiler of sorts at $399 – whereas the Xbox Series S gets a significantly weaker GPU than the Xbox Series X. However at $299 the slimmed down console is cheaper still, and still gets to run next-gen games.
| Next-Gen Console Specs | ||||||
| PlayStation 5 | PlayStation 5 Digital Edition |
Xbox Series S | Xbox Series X | |||
| CPU | 8 Core AMD Zen 2 @ 3.5 GHz w/SMT |
8 Core AMD Zen 2 @ 3.6 GHz @ 3.4 GHz w/SMT |
8 Core AMD Zen 2 @ 3.8 GHz @ 3.6 GHz /wSMT |
|||
| GPU | 36 CU AMD RDNA2 @ 2.23GHz |
20 CU AMD RDNA2 @ 1.565 GHz |
52 CU AMD RDNA2 @ 1.825 GHz |
|||
| GPU Throughput (FP32) | 10.28 TFLOPS | 4 TFLOPS | 12.15 TFLOPS | |||
| Memory | 16GB GDDR6 @ 14Gbps |
10GB GDDR6 @ 14Gbps |
16GB GDDR6 @ 14Gbps |
|||
| Memory Throughput | 16GB@448GB/sec (256-bit) |
8GB@224GB/sec (128-bit) 2GB@56GB/sec (32-bit) |
10GB@560GB/sec (320-bit) 6GB@336GB/sec (192-bit) |
|||
| Storage | 825GB PCIe 4 x4 SSD | 512GB PCIe 4 x2 SSD | 1TB PCIe 4 x2 SSD | |||
| Storage Throughput | 5.5GB/sec | 2.4GB/sec | ||||
| Storage Expansion | M.2 (NVMe) Slot PCIe 4 x4 |
Xbox Storage Expansion Card (1TB) | ||||
| Disc Drive | 4K UHD Blu-Ray | No | No | 4K UHD Blu-Ray | ||
| Manufacturing Process | TSMC 7nm | TSMC 7nm | TSMC 7nm | TSMC 7nm | ||
| Launch Date | 2020/11/12 | 2020/11/10 | ||||
| Launch Price | $499 | $399 | $299 | $499 | ||
Or if you’re in the mood for a PC (a platform we’re particularly partial towards), over the next couple of months we will be seeing new hardware launches there as well, including NVIDIA’s $500 GeForce RTX 3070, and AMD’s new RDNA2-based Radeon RX 6000 video cards. So there is no shortage of gaming hardware to be had this fall – at least if you have the cash.
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tipoo - Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - link
No pricing for Canada anywhere eh? I wonder if they'll follow Xbox in not just doing the direct price conversions and actually eating some of it for a change, i.e 499 CAD for the DE rather than 522.tipoo - Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - link
Nice, followed MS and ate 20-30 dollars of the conversion, so it's actually cheaper here.Alistair - Thursday, September 17, 2020 - link
do the math, you are paying over $800 in Canada for the PS5 with a second controller, over $900 with a gamethat is $900+ in Canada to get what you got with the SNES, a system and an extra controller and game
they raised the price on everything in canada to above xbox, system, controller, and games
I think the value proposition is laughable, you want to pay $900+ to play one game?
MrTeal - Thursday, September 17, 2020 - link
I say the same thing about cars. You need to spend $20,000 for the car itself, $2000 for plates and insurance and $60 for a tank of gas.You want to spend $22,060 to drive 500km? Laughable.
MrVibrato - Friday, September 18, 2020 - link
That kinda reminds me of the old joke about an arab prince going to university in europe...tipoo - Thursday, September 17, 2020 - link
Good thing they don't just play one game, and as an entertainment product the cost of either platform per dollar of entertainment over 7 years is extremely competitive.I also went the entire 8th gen with just one controller, so ymmv.
khanikun - Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - link
Saw $630 CAD on Best Buy preorder. Not sure how official that istipoo - Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - link
Yup it's 499 and 630, which is actually nice that they're eating a part of the direct conversion. Microsoft is eating up to 60 dollars of the Series X conversion.ikjadoon - Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - link
Looking at storage (and the size of today's games):PS5 Digital: flagship hardware + 825 GB (for $399)
Xbox Series S: mid-end hardware + 500 GB (for $299)
Gotta say, the PS5 Digital actually makes a compelling hardware price argument here. Microsoft's proprietary NVMe expansion slots (by Seagate) don't have pricing, but some leaks point to 1 TB for an eye-watering $220 more.
cfenton - Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - link
I'm not sure the storage size matters too much as long as you can still connect external drives for storage. You keep what you're actively playing on the internal SSD and everything else on an external HDD. If you want your whole library on an NVME SSD, it's going to be expensive, but I'm not sure why you'd do that.I agree that the all digital PS5 is priced well, though.