Sony’s CFO has confirmed that instead of hiking PS5 hardware prices to deal with soaring memory costs, the company plans to squeeze more money out of people who already own the console.
In Sony’s Q3 FY2025 financial briefing, CFO Lin Tao flagged rising DRAM prices as a real risk for PS5 manufacturing but said they’ve already secured enough memory for the next holiday season. Rather than pass those costs straight into a higher PS5 MSRP, Sony intends to “monetize the installed base” and “further expand software and network services revenue.”
That “installed base” is now about 92.2 million PS5s, with 132 million monthly active PlayStation Network users and 76% of software sales already being digital. First‑party titles are pulling weight too, with Ghost of Yōtei moving 3.3 million copies in the quarter and helping push Sony’s Game & Network Services profits up even as hardware revenue dipped.
None of this explicitly spells PS+ price hikes, but people reading between the lines are convinced. If Sony doesn’t want another explicit PS5 price bump, the levers left are:
- Higher software prices over time or fewer deep discounts during sales.
- More aggressive nudging toward digital purchases and add‑ons, where margins are better than boxed copies.
- Subscription tweaks: Plus tier changes, creeping price increases, or more content paywalls baked into services.
Community reaction so far ranges from resigned (“of course they’re going to juice the whales with an install base that big”) to people pointing at RAM shortages and saying this is just the new normal for late‑cycle consoles. It also puts Sony in the same basic boat as Valve and others wrestling with the 2026 “RAMpocalypse” on hardware while trying not to scare people away with sticker shock.
In other words, your PS5 probably won’t get more expensive on the shelf, but everything you do with it might.
Source: Sony via Automaton Media
