Prices of the PS5 peripherals were also increased in Japan only (for now):
There was no mention of price increases on the PlayStation Blog in Europe or the US, but we’ve asked Sony for confirmation.
- DualSense wireless controller (White and Midnight Black): 9,480 yen tax included (currently 7,678 yen tax included)
- DualSense Wireless Controller (Cosmic Red, Nova Pink, Galactic Purple, Starlight Blue and Gray Camouflage): 9,980 yen tax included (currently 8,228 yen tax included)
- Pusle 3D wireless headset: 12,980 yen tax included (currently 10,978 yen tax included)
- HD camera: 7,980 yen tax included (currently 6,578 yen tax included)
- Media remote control: 3,980 yen tax included (currently 3,278 yen tax included)
That's about what I'd expect tbh. The yen is down almost 15% vs USD just since January of this year. Prices for pretty much everything are fucked in Japan right now.
And I don't think Sony has seen Japan as a primary market for more than a decade at this point. Remember that the PS4 actually launched in Japan four months after it did in the US (Nov 2013 vs Feb 2014). And it's pretty obvious why when you look at data on Japanese consumer spending:
Japanese consumption hit its peak in 2010 and still hasn't recovered. The fact that per capita consumption spending has remained steady means that we're actively seeing Japanese population decline erode Japan's status as a primary market for consumer goods. Even for Japanese-made consumer goods, Japan alone is not enough.
I preferably refer to Famitsu (and Media Create) archived data in order to obtain a more detailed idea on how the Japanese vidya console market looks like over the years, even if it's limited to retail sales (which still make up the majority of game sales there nonetheless):
Said data proves that the size of the Japanese market is still strikingly large for a
single country, it's just solely the fault of AAA japanese publishers & SIE for neglecting the home market to such degree. Meanwhile Nintendo
and a burgeoning PC market (
once again proved during the TGS 2023) are currently reaping the benefits of such mistakes.
Even the fresh new talents for the next generation of japanese developers prefer to work on their games for the Nintendo Switch and PC/Steam as it's been
demonstrated by the CEO of CyberConnect2 earlier this year (and people in the comments mocked him because he believed the japanese game industry was doomed for good that way).
Also it doesn't matter if SIE doesn't see Japan as an important market, no matter how stupid and self-destructive of a business behavior it actually is.
Playstation is heavily dependent on third-parties as the brand built a large part of its success thanks to them, which includes the japanese third-parties too.
But Sony has done virtually nothing to help these publishers out in recent years, because aside from making money, the second most important job for a platform holder is to make that platform accessible and successful for other game softwares. Playstation especially went from having a near de-facto monopoly on Japanese third-party content, have it most of it stolen by Nintendo, and now reduced at simply sharing a market of AAA Japanese third-parties with Steam and Xbox. Thus tremendously melting off Playstation's identity as a result. And it may be only a matter of time before Nintendo releases its next hardware soon enough, and get the support of said japanese AAA titles, if the rumors are proven to be true.
Remember a few years ago where you could see people saying in full confidence that Playstation had Persona 5, EDF, Ys, Nier, Vanillaware, etc. on lockdown and they would never be released on a Nintendo hardware? Good times.
I somehow expected a redesign. Not to double down on the ugly.
I argue to say there is nothing "slim" about these new PS5 models unlike, let's say, the PS2 iterations:
Now THAT is slim, by trimming away all the plastic fat and be more compact.
