PlayStation Boss Hints PS5 Will Not Be Cheap

Slightly disappointing but not at all surprising news PlayStation enthusiasts - it sounds like the PS5 ain't gonna be cheap.

Sony Interactive Entertainment's president and CEO Jim Ryan has indicated the console will represent value - but the sort of value a five star resort offers, rather than say Aldi.

Sony

Asked whether the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic might create a challenging environment in which to sell the PlayStation 5, he told Games Industry: "Recent history has told us that gaming is one of the pastimes, and one of the businesses, that benefits in economically difficult times.

"It's quite logical, people don't have the money to go out so they stay at home. Now, who knows how this recession is going to look, how deep it will be and how long it will last. It could be that the historic templates, the historic models, that have applied in the past may not apply in the future.

"I think the best way that we can address this is by providing the best possible value proposition that we can. I don't necessarily mean lowest price. 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."

Basically, you'll get what you pay for.

If for some reason you are now distraught, having inexplicably expected the console to be cheap, you can console yourself with the knowledge that the PS5 remains 'on track', despite the challenges posed by lockdown.

Sony

Ryan said: "It's been a real rollercoaster of a year. We realised a couple of months ago that we were going to have to spend a lot more time paying attention to the PS4 community than we had anticipated, as that community, along with everybody else in the world, went into lockdown.

"But we are obviously principally occupied with getting ready for PS5. I think most businesses would find themselves challenged with the working-from-home environment, and I do think the way that the various groups within PlayStation have responded has been magnificent.

"There are the hardware engineers who are having to work without being able to get into China, where PS5 will be assembled. That's kind of tough. The software engineers who are building these great features, who are building a great PS5 UI... some of that can be readily done in isolation. But when it comes to putting it all together, that's not easy to do remotely and they're doing a great job.

"And finally, the people who make games. We, and our partners, seem to be coping really well. And so we are on track. We are going to launch this holiday and we're going to launch globally. We're really looking forward to it and it's going to be a blast."

You will be able to find out the latest on the PS5 at a launch event on Thursday at 8pm.

Topics: GAMING, PlayStation

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey