• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Did Sony made PlayStation 5 Digital Edition just to brag about low price point?

I think it would be more of a situation where (if this is true that the discless is constrained) limiting the availability of the digital only version is a stealth price hike.

The initial idea was probably to lock people in for good, no way to resell games, no possibility of getting the games at the store, use or new. So they make all this extra money with you after the fact (no need to ship and make discs, no inventory to manage, no orders to take, no need to maintain relationship with the stores and distributors or even fight for place on the floor). In the end there is a lot of money to make with the downloads, buying discs is often a lot cheaper.

Only a stupid teen would make a cheaper product "just to brag".
 
Last edited:

Mr Moose

Member
What's funny is its always a disc drive model with a digital code foe a sony game lmao.

They could save their customers so much money if it was digital plus digital lol guess that doesn't work though.
You know... They do that too... Right?

They aren't saving anyone anything by having people buy digital consoles, it would cost more money because digital games are generally more expensive.
 
no. if they did then they failed because the Series X is much cheaper.

they done it to warm people up to the idea of an all digital future that is coming. chances are next gen there will be only one model of the PS6 and it won't be one with a disc drive. plus Sony wants more of your $ and they can do that buy forcing you to buy games through their store.
 

SLB1904

Banned
no. if they did then they failed because the Series X is much cheaper.

they done it to warm people up to the idea of an all digital future that is coming. chances are next gen there will be only one model of the PS6 and it won't be one with a disc drive. plus Sony wants more of your $ and they can do that buy forcing you to buy games through their store.
Sony is not making digital only console anytime soon. Loads of countries around the world doesn't have good Internet infrastructure.
 

tommib

Member
To call it to "brag" is kind of a strange way of putting it, but yes, the system was partly designed so that 399$ can be used in advertisements to work in its favor. The actual PS5's digital that are being produced are probably but a fraction of the regular PS5 amount, because the disk drive certainly doesn't cost 100$ to produce, so Sony makes a lot more money on a regular PS5 sale than a digital one.
But wouldn’t they be interested in locking everyone under their digital game prices as half of this forum says? That digital-only consoles are a trap? Wouldn’t permitting the use of discs and used game discs lower their for-profit anti-consumer directives? Help me understand.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
PS5 Digital Edition owners:

Video Games Dancing GIF by PlayStation
 

Esppiral

Member
No. They made it because the number of people buying physical games is falling rapidly, and making a PS5 without an optical drive is cheaper, which means it can also retail for less.
No, they made it so they can lock you under their atrocious ecosystem and sell you games at ridiculous prices while the physical version of those games is cheaper.

They fool you telling you it's cheaper but in the long( and not so long) run it is way expensive.

God of war Ragnarok 59,90€ on Amazon, (no BF) 79,99€ on their store speaks loads
 

Fbh

Member
In my country it's the other way around, Digital Edition is easier to find.
The Physical version is more appealing because lots of people still engage in game selling/trading due to how expensive games have become (games cost literally twice as much as they did when the PS4 launched).

The sad part is that Sony is still scalping their console because they know Playstation is the more popular brand here. The Digital Ps5 is like $80 more expensive than the Series X.
 
Last edited:

Rykan

Member
But wouldn’t they be interested in locking everyone under their digital game prices as half of this forum says? That digital-only consoles are a trap? Wouldn’t permitting the use of discs and used game discs lower their for-profit anti-consumer directives? Help me understand.
I don't think that describing digital only consoles as a trap is really accurate. I think most people are well away of what they're getting into when they purchase a digital edition.
The reason why Sony is only producing limited amount of PS5 Digital Editions is for upselling. Get people who prefer Digital distribution excited with the 399 price, use that price as advertisement anywhere and then have people settle for the 499$ one because that's the only one that's available*. That way you get people who prefer Digital Distribution to still spend an additional 100$.
 
It's largely this, there is no point in making alot of the digital edition if you are able to have your cake and eat it to.

I also think it does raise the question about the price of this 'slim' model.


Interestingly 2/5 of the digital links is actually oos, another 2 are like extremely unappealing bundles, argos is a pain to determine actually figure out cause its obviously based on location.

Y2IheNk.jpg


We probably do require more data re the splits other than Japan

Lmao at that bundle
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
The ratio is understandably 3-4x less than the Disk edition, but they haven't skewed the production ratio too much by any means.

Look at the following chart, and you will see that the lifetime sales for PS5 DE is higher than either Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S.

03iXNH8.jpg


So they are producing fairly large quantities of PS5 DE. It's just harder to get because of the high demand. Also, depends on the region. Keep searching; good luck!
 

jroc74

Phone reception is more important to me than human rights
Yes and no.

It obviously was a pr and strategic move....but....ask ppl in Japan (or any region where the PS5 DE has at times been more than Series consoles combined.)

While the Series consoles have sold more than the XBO and the PS5 is still lagging behind the PS4...there is a real sales gap between the Series consoles and PS5.

A breakdown of how many all models sold would be interesting.

While some were so focused on what the Series S was gonna mean for Sony....no one really paid attention to the PS5 and DE being basically the same console, same specs except for a disc drive.

Looking at the past 3 months....might be time to say Sony also made a genius move with the DE. Like some say about MS with the Series S.

The ratio is understandably 3-4x less than the Disk edition, but they haven't skewed the production ratio too much by any means.

Look at the following chart, and you will see that the lifetime sales for PS5 DE is higher than either Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S.

03iXNH8.jpg


So they are producing fairly large quantities of PS5 DE. It's just harder to get because of the high demand. Also, depends on the region. Keep searching; good luck!
Yup, this is why I mentioned Japan.
 
Last edited:

AmuroChan

Member
I don't think so. The Digital version is going to make Sony more money over the life cycle of the PS5 since every game purchased will be digital. It eliminates the second hand market completely on these consoles.
 

Esppiral

Member
I don't think so. The Digital version is going to make Sony more money over the life cycle of the PS5 since every game purchased will be digital. It eliminates the second hand market completely on these consoles.
Exactly that, plus digital games are more expensive and they get a higher revenue from each.
 

MidGenRefresh

*Refreshes biennially
Not quite. You can still purchase digital Xbox games from traditional retail stores. You are not limited to the MS store for digital Xbox game purchases. This was true for PS4 games in the past but Sony moved to sell digital games exclusively from their stores now.

Okay, 95% then.
 
No, they made it so they can lock you under their atrocious ecosystem and sell you games at ridiculous prices while the physical version of those games is cheaper.

They fool you telling you it's cheaper but in the long( and not so long) run it is way expensive.

God of war Ragnarok 59,90€ on Amazon, (no BF) 79,99€ on their store speaks loads
PlayStation Store has pretty good sales these days as long as you're not someone who wants to play everything on day one.

It's really not that different from Steam pricing.
 
The price was about bragging, yes, and they eventually corrected their pricing error. Selling this for $399 for 2 years when it was sold from 50% to 100% more by scalpers was stupid.

But the console itself is a trojan horse and is destined to become the main model.
 
Last edited:

midnightAI

Member
The price was about bragging, yes, and they eventually corrected their pricing error. Selling this for $399 for 2 years when it was sold from 50% to 100% more by scalpers was stupid.

But the console itself is a trojan horse and is destined to become the main model.
You forgot the /s at the end of your post
 

Rockman33

Member
No. They made it because the number of people buying physical games is falling rapidly, and making a PS5 without an optical drive is cheaper, which means it can also retail for less.
I agree that most people are moving to digital. But that disc drive probably cost $20 at most. It’s definitely to advertise “starting” at $400
 

REDRZA MWS

Member
Absolutely not. Physical media is dead. Disks are installation disks/physical DRM. You can play games off a disc anymore, they hate saves to your ssd/hdd. They are obsolete and a waste.
 

reinking

Gold Member
I agree that most people are moving to digital. But that disc drive probably cost $20 at most. It’s definitely to advertise “starting” at $400
Putting the word definitely in the sentence does not necessarily make it a true statement.



I can literally go to the PlayStation store and purchase the GoW digital bundle right now. (in the USA)
 
Last edited:

kyliethicc

Member
I decided that it is time to buy a PlayStation 5. But since it won't be my primary platform and I will mainly use it to play PlayStation exclusives through PlayStation Plus Extra, I thought it will be waste of my 100€ to buy classic edition of console, so I picked Digital Edition as my ideal choice. FYI, I'm living in a country where PS5 are starting to appear in stores and are available.

But that's for "classic" console. Not for Digital Edition. There are few stores that have PlayStation 5, but non that have Digital Edition. I even asked a guys in stores about Digital Edition and they told me that Sony is sending PlayStation 5 consoles in 20:1 ratio - so 20 "Classic" consoles and only 1 Digital Edition.

On one hand I get that Sony is loosing more money with Digital Edition. But, what is even a point of that console if they are skewing production so hard towards classic console? Is it so they can brag about "lower price point?" I really don't get it.
Its not that hard to get one anymore. I did.

And the point of it is that a lot of people don't care about discs.
 

Zok310

Banned
Yup, thats exactly why they done it, just so they can brag. Once again the geniuses on gaf figured it out, cant hide anything from you all.....
 
Last edited:

Bankai

Member
No, they made it so there's ONE playstation 5 system (!) for developers to make theirs games for.

Unlike the Series S and X, there's no gap in power and "a Playstation 5 game" can always mean the same thing.
 

Famipan

Member
Sony was probably planning that all DE-owners are sure the become PS Plus Extra or Premium subscribers to cope with the horrendous priced PS5-games. Even if there are good games on Extra, I don't think it's worth for someone that has a vast digital library of PS4 titles. For players who skipped PS4 I think they should start by getting a PS Plus Essential one year sub to play through the PS Plus Collection and then later upgrade Essential to Extra. PS5 DE is a kind of PS4 Pro Deluxe where you can play through old PS4-games in its best performance.

It's going to be interesting to see if the low ratio of 1:4 DE increases in 2023 or 2024 if digital PS5-games are getting better deals by then. I really don't like subscription services since those stresses me by having to finish long games before they disappear from the service and now when I'm letting my PS+ Essential sub expire I'm feeling that stress (although I'm happy cutting down my back log)

Of course I could always trade my DE in and get an SE to be able to get cheap used games, but I prefer to support the developers, get convenient digital licenses and am fed up with browsing for used games and selling, parceling and sending away just to still buy the same game again on PSN sales.

To me, DE-PS5 has been a restriction but at the same time a golden chance to finally get a push to start working on my back log, and it has been really rewarding so far.
It's also scary how the internal disc-reader on SE is tied to the console, so if it fails you can't just get one from ebay and install by yourself.
Also, many disc-users seems to get problems with their disc drives from time to time, such as annoying noise or that it won't read that plastic key of a disc.
 
Last edited:

FrankieSab

Member
It's the version I wanted, but it was nowhere to be found. I never buy physical version of games anyway, so I paid more for no reason.
 
Last edited:
An increasing number of consumers loves to have fewer choices. That's why it exists. There's some joke hidden in there with Ryan commenting on the Microsoft Activision deal etc.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
I actually know 2 peeps with the digital ps5. They are more than happy with it and it does still offer the best price for a high powered current gen console. I think I would always prefer to have a drive though.
 
Top Bottom