Sony’s PS5 isn’t likely to be cheap, but the company’s CEO Jim Ryan has said the next-generation console’s price will be worth the premium.
Ryan told Gamesindustry.biz that he expects the PS5 to sell well even with the economic pressures many of the world’s nations are under due to the coronavirus pandemic. But that indicates that the PS5 might be significantly more expensive than the PS4 was at launch.
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"I think the best way that we can address this [economic challenges] is by providing the best possible value proposition that we can. I don't necessarily mean [the] lowest price," said Ryan. "Recent history has told us that gaming is one of the pastimes, and one of the businesses, that benefits in economically difficult times.”
So far rumours have pointed at the PS5 costing between $450 and $500. This has prompted speculation that Microsoft is holding back from revealing the price of the Xbox Series X until Sony reveals the PS5’s price, as Microsoft is predicted to undercut Sony’s next-generation console by around $100.
Given that excitement is building around the next-generation consoles, there’s an argument that they will likely appeal to many Xbox and PlayStation fans regardless of price. But which machine comes out on top will likely depend on the balance of cost and value for money.
Ryan reckons that PlayStation’s strength comes from its games: "Value is a combination of many things. In our area it means games, it means number of games, depth of games, breadth of games, quality of games, price of games... all of these things and how they avail themselves of the feature set of the platform."
Given the PS4 has critically-acclaimed exclusive titles like God of War, Bloodborne, The Last of Us and the upcoming The Last of Us 2, it’s not hard to see why Ryan and Sony would bank heavily on the PlayStation’s reputation for exclusive games to help drive its next-generation console. Sony has a PS5 game showcase scheduled for Thursday, June 4, so we’ll see what it has to offer then.
Microsoft arguably doesn’t have the history of stellar exclusive games for its Xbox division. But where the Xbox Series X looks to offer its value is in the services it offers on top of the console, such as Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Xbox Live, and the ability to play Xbox games on Windows 10 PCs. The Xbox Series X also trumps the PS5 on sheer power, offering 12 teraflops of compute power to the PS5’s 10.28 teraflops.
It’s still way too early to properly predict which console will come out on top. But the Xbox Series X and PS5 are set to usher in a very interesting next-generation of console gaming.
