At CES 2020, Sony talked to Jim Ryan about some of the upcoming features with the PS5, such as the presence of SSDs and support for tracking technology via the hardware, as well as support for 3D audio technology alongside Haptics \ Adaptive Triggers, but until this moment we still miss knowing the price of the device, which seems to be The most important thing that worries everyone is the decision of some people to buy one device over another.
Generally it is said that there is an event for Playstation 5 next month, we may witness more details about the device, including the price - if the company does not decide to postpone it to another event - and until that time let us expect together how much the next device price can be based on the information we know about Its specifications and features, whether official or leaked.
Deciding to set the price for a home device that will be issued in 2020 is not easy and will be a completely different matter from what it was in 2013, it is clear that both Sony and Microsoft have learned the lesson well by the need to keep the price as low as possible, as Sony's experience with the Playstation 3 (put at a price of 500 -600 dollars, according to the capacity of the hard) gave her a strong deterrent how the price can affect significantly and threaten even the companies that have a great reputation among the players and make them fall into the arms of competitors.
To answer the big question, I will start by highlighting some of the features of the PlayStation 5 and the hardware that will be included and the price popular for them, then we will arrive at the total expected cost and then we will discuss some factors that are expected to affect the final pricing to reach the end of the expected number.
Hardware to support light tracking technology
One of the most important features of the next generation that it will support the technology of tracking light via the hardware, that is, there will be a dedicated nucleus to perform the necessary operations to simulate rays and show them in games within the processing chip of the Playstation 5, and of course the price of cards for this technology on expensive computers is the cheapest graphics processor that supports RTX 2060 technology Its price ranges between 340 and 360 dollars.
But it should be noted that Sony will rely on AMD to make its device, which will provide it with a dedicated processor from the Ryzen category and a graphics card from the Navi family, and since it is usually AMD processors that are cheaper than the NVIDIA processors, we expect Sony to be able to reduce the cost of its processors significantly.
But what about the central processor? Indicators suggest that next-generation hardware processors will be close to the Ryzen 5 3600, which is on sale up to $ 190.
SSD drives
Another feature that will make a big difference with next generation devices is that it contains SSDs, which will provide a significant reduction in download times and help developers even with development operations because of its great read speed compared to regular disks.
Fortunately, the prices of these drives have decreased in the past two years from what they were before, where you can get a 1 TB SSD at a price of $ 99 for the computer, but Sony will not get it at the same price for the average consumer as it will buy it from the manufacturers wholesale.
4K Blu-Ray Disc Player
There may not be many players interested in the presence of the Blu-ray 4K player, but its addition remains a feature that players will never refuse to the next device, the difference between this player and the Playstation 4 disc player is that the player for the current generation does not support viewing in 4K on screens that support this resolution but displays it accurately 1080p.
In general Sony puts on the market 4K Blu-Ray players of its production and can be obtained at a price of $ 100 at the minimum for the average consumer, but since Sony is the manufacturer I think it will not mind to offer this player to its new device even if at a loss.
DualShock 5 controller
Currently we know that Sony will offer DualShock 5 control hands with many great features such as support for haptic feedback technology that allows the player to feel the difference between different environments or even the terrain that he walks or walks on, whether it is a car or other vehicles.
The shoulder buttons have also been modified to make them sensitive to the pressure intensity, as well as they have a built-in microphone to support the smart assistant, which was said to be among the benefits of the Playstation 5. However, despite all these technologies and features, I do not think that Sony will raise the price of the PlayStation 5 controller to become more expensive than the PlayStation 4 hand, which is 60 dollars.
What is the expected price for the device?
As I said above, predicting the price of a home appliance in 2020 is very difficult, because the prices that the average consumer spends to purchase hardware or things that we mentioned above will inevitably be more expensive than the prices that Sony will pay to meet because, as I said, they will buy them at a wholesale price because of their mass production.
But knowing the prices enables us to predict the field Sony can think of when making the pricing decision. If we calculate the total cost of the points mentioned above only, we will get a total of approximately $ 800, and this of course is a price that any player is not willing to spend on a home device.
On the other hand, there are several factors that will reduce this total, and they are:
Sony will get discounted prices for mass production of hardware.
Usually AMD processors are cheaper than NVIDIA to offer even with the lowest RTX card it has.
Sony's own CD player.
Sony can upgrade the DualShock 5 controller without incurring any additional costs than the price of the PlayStation 4 hand.
The leaks talk about technical tricks devised by the PlayStation engineer to enable their next device to provide stronger performance than expected and at the lowest possible cost so that more than two processing operations can be carried out within a single cycle to get performance of 12 teraflops or 8 teraflops while maintaining a balanced and inexpensive price at the same time.
Sony's willingness to bear the loss of selling on each device in order to put it at an acceptable price and compensate with the sales of the exclusives that its teams are producing, as well as PlayStation Plus subscriptions that sell for $ 60, which is not new and is usually done by all manufacturers of home appliances.
So when we consider these factors, we can conclude that Sony may resort to offering its device at a price that is the same as the PlayStation 4 launch price, which is $ 400. She saw how this price was enough to attract a lot of players to buy the device, taking advantage of the price difference between him and his competitor Xbox One. Which was raised at $ 500 in 2013.
But there is another point of view that a number of analysts market with talking about the price of $ 500 and say that there are several factors that may contribute to determining the price besides the cost of manufacturing such as inflation and Trump's threat to impose taxes on the devices manufactured in China and the company's desire not to put its device at the same price as the Playstation 4 Pro because this can To suggest to the players that there has been no jump or development in terms of capabilities, and this is a negative message that no one wants to spread among the potential customers.
In general, these were the expectations for the price of the device, along with listing the factors that can affect its price and the factors that may contribute to increasing the cost compared to the current generation. For you, what price do you expect and why?