Update: The PS5 is now out and available to buy, but it can be hard to track down so check out our PS5 restock tracker.
After months of fruitless speculation, Sony has finally announced the PS5’s price and release date.
No more hedging; no more “leaks,” no more interminable rumors; we have the real thing. The full-featured PS5 with a disc drive will cost $499; the PS5 Digital Edition will cost $399.
The system will debut in the U.S, Japan, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia and South Korea on November 12, and the rest of the world on November 19. Pre-orders begin on Sept. 17 at select retailers.
The information came from Sony’s September PS5 livestream, at the very end of the event. After highlighting new titles like Final Fantasy XVI and Spider-Man: Miles Morales (and just before teasing the next God of War game), Sony gave us a very straightforward list of PS5 prices and release dates for different territories.
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PS5 prices
As stated above, the consoles will cost $499 and $399 in the U.S., with similar prices throughout the rest of the world: €499 and €399, £449 and £359, and ¥49,980 and ¥39,980, depending on your territory.
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This is roughly in line with what most analysts and fans predicted, although some thought that Sony might try to radically undercut its rival, Microsoft. Instead, the PS5 with a disc drive costs $499: exactly the same as an Xbox Series X.
Meanwhile, the PS5 Digital Edition, at $399, costs $100 more than Microsoft’s less-powerful Xbox Series S. There’s not an apples-to-apples comparison between the PS5 Digital Edition and the Xbox Series S, although it’s interesting that consumers will be able to choose from four different consoles that range between $300 and $500 come this November.
PS5 release date
The PS5’s release date is also somewhat surprising, since Microsoft isn’t planning to do a staggered launch. Furthermore, November 12 is only two days after the Xbox Series X’s launch date, November 10. Most fans expected Sony to wait at least a week for Microsoft’s hype to die down. While the Xbox Series X will still beat the PS5 to retail, having a two-day lead may not have the same impact as waiting a week between consoles. What effect this has on sales — if any — we’ll have to wait and see.
However, it’s worth pointing out that the November 19 release date will almost certainly be a disappointment to Sony fans in Western Europe and other territories. While the Xbox Series X will launch globally on November 10, PS5 fans that aren’t in one of the countries mentioned above will have to wait a whole extra week to acquire one of the new Sony consoles.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a terribly long time, but it does raise questions about how and why Sony chose which countries will receive the device first.
