The launch of PS5 was marked by high demand and a marked shortage, two keys that allowed speculators and resellers to almost completely drain the stock and inflate the price of said console. Those of you who read us daily are already aware of this topic, and you know that the price of PS5 came to be in the range of 1,500-2,000 euros andn the time of greatest scarcity and demand.
It was a curious situation, because it was impossible to buy a PS5 in stores, but there were a large number of units available in second-hand sales channels. Many people tried to seize the moment, and in the end, consumers who just wanted to enjoy a next-gen console had to be patient in order to get a unit at a “reasonable” price, in quotes because only a lucky few were that lucky.
Even today, more than two years after the launch of PS5, availability is still not good, although it is possible to get it in certain packs that include games and prepaid cards, and that therefore have a higher price than the basic version that only comes with a controller. It could be worse, I remember that until relatively recently those packs focused on accompanying a television console, which made the total price to pay enormous.
A few months ago we saw that Sony had improved the supply of PS5, and today the Japanese company has confirmed through its official blog that the shortage will be a thing of the past, and that from now on it will be much easier to get said console in the main markets. retailers in each country. In some countries it is possible, in fact, to buy the console directly through the official Sony website, But has availability really improved in Spain?
Yes, doing a quick search I have been able to find available units. In most cases these were still overpriced, although I have also been able to find some units at a good price. It is good news, but those units at a good price were limited to packs that, as I said before, bring games and other additions that may not interest us. In any case, the important thing is that this improvement at the stock level is real, and that it is becoming increasingly noticeable in the market.
PS5: price, availability and real value
That the availability of PS5 will continue to improve throughout 2023 is undoubtedly good news. However, we must be aware that we are talking about a console that hit the market at the end of 2020, and that in all this time its life cycle has developed in a totally opposite way to what would be normal.
The normal thing is that a console that has been on the market for more than two years already received a price drop, or that it is available with packs that include a game or a controller at a lower price than they would have separately. We already saw it at the time with PS4, but with PS5 the opposite has happened, since its price has increased by 50 euros and some packs that include games or accessories are inflated in price.
There is no doubt that the launch of PS5 was something totally anomalous from a market perspective, and that its situation today has not yet normalized. With the recovery of the euro against the dollarthe drop in prices in the world of semiconductors, the normalization of the supply chain and the maturation of the key components used by said console, production costs should drop significantly, and this would have to translate into a reduction in the price of PS5 .
Unfortunately, It does not seem that Sony is going to lower the price of PS5 in the short or medium term, and it’s totally normal, since you don’t need to do it. Your console is still in huge demand, and until this changes, the Japanese company will not start thinking about a price adjustment. If we talk about the value it offers in terms of hardware, yes, it’s clear that despite the time that has passed, it’s still an interesting option, especially since building an equally powerful PC would be much more expensive.
In this sense, it is important to highlight what I have already told you on other occasions, and that is that PS5 has a much more balanced hardware configuration than PS4, and this you are making it age better and retain greater value over time. However, the recent price drops that have occurred in the graphics card sector are making us increasingly closer to being able to assemble a PC higher than PS5 for 600 euros.
I think We have a very interesting stage ahead of us. now that the availability of PS5 is going to gradually improve. We will see how demand evolves, how the second-hand market dedicated to resale transforms and its possible impact on the sale price of the console, and also what happens when Sony launches the rumored model with a removable optical drive, a version of PS5 that will allow you to unify design and centralize production around a single console.
I’m convinced that this year will be the one that will mark the end, broadly speaking, of PS4 and Xbox One, and that, with few exceptions, will serve to finally complete the generational transition. By this I mean that 2023 will be the last year in which we will see the launch of multiple major triple-A games developed for both generations of consoles, and that between the end of this year and the beginning of 2024 the vast majority of games will already be exclusive to the current generation.
The truth is that it already touches, since the previous generation it has been very long-livedand had been showing for a long time clear signs of exhaustion. The intergenerational developments have ultimately ended up weighing down the current generation of consoles as well, and have had a very negative impact on highly anticipated games.
