It is no longer a game. It is a Mexican Standoff. The two biggest names in the console gaming industry are doing whatever it takes to stare down their rival into submission. Sony is moving ahead with its launch of the PS5 gaming console platform. Microsoft has already unveiled its Xbox Series X and Xbox Series X consoles. Sony is competing on the terms of better hardware and an amazingly well-lined up games library. Microsoft is playing to its strength. The differentiation they are going after is cost. The Next-Gen Xbox consoles will reportedly be way cheaper than their PS5 Counterparts. This move has come to Sony’s attention. And they are moving heaven and earth to get PS5 a last minute price drop to have a fighting chance with its immediate rival.
Both the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S console will be available for sale from the 10th of November. Console gaming has hit sky high rates in recent years. With many gamers facing cash crunches, the price point of Xbox Series S was welcome news for many folks. The Series X console will cost $499 and the Xbox Series S will cost $299. The price for Xbox Series S has been very well-received with many applauding Microsoft for going for a cost leadership strategy instead of a niche premium category.
The ball is in Sony’s court. Pressure is mounting up on the gaming and electronics conglomerate to set a competitive price for their PS5. In the year 2013, the roles were reversed. When the PS4 was about to hit the market’s Sony’s executives had promised that their console will cost at least a hundred dollars less than the Xbox One. This put the onus on Microsoft that time. That move was probably an outcome of the backlash Sony received for pricing their previous console – the PS3 with a $499 price tag. At that time the Xbox 360 was only $299.
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While we implore you to take this piece of news with a pinch of salt, there are enough rumors circling around in the internet that Sony is seriously considering a price drop for their PS5 console. Prominent European Gaming Magazine Publication – Gamereactor cited an anonymous source. The ‘source’ in question had given bulletproof predictions before. According to the source, Sony had put the price tag for PS5 considerably higher. When Microsoft revealed the price ranges for their Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, it put Sony PS5’s entire plans on the back foot. The originally decided upon price for the PS5 was “considerably” higher than the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.
Sony has rumored to have brought down the price for their PS5 All Digital Version to $399 and their regular PS5 model to $499 as a move to counter Microsoft’s Xbox Series X reveal. This would somewhat level the playing field. We have to point out that the Series S is considerably less powerful in terms of hardware when compared to the Xbox Series X. On the other hand, the PS5 Digital Version is hardware wise identical to the PS5 regular model. The only thing it is missing is the 4k Blu-Ray drive.
The official price for the PS5 has not yet been made public. And the news sources are anonymous. So we cannot stress it enough to take everything here with the biggest grain of salt you can find. Provided Sony does reduce its prices and the PS5 price drop is connected to the Xbox Series X reveal, there is no way for us to actually confirm the news and find a common link between them.
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Sony really does need to get it together. The PS5 console just might end up to be its jump the shark moment. The gaming industry is facing massive turmoil. The current lock-down scenario has pushed the manufacturing sector to its absolute limits. It will be a herculean task for Sony to keep the costs down for the PS5. Many other competitors are also taking innovative approaches to enter into this segment. Google Stadia is poised to challenge Sony’s right to the throne. The Xbox is chipping away at its customer base. More and more gamers are switching to the portable Nintendo Switch for casual game-play.
Sony is having a PS5 showcase event on the 16th of September. That is only a few days away. It is all but confirmed that Sony is about to unveil the price ranges for the PS5 and PS5 All-Digital. The event will also most likely announce several third party games under development that are exclusive to the Playstation library. Theorists and experts have confirmed that the new event will help Sony build some much-needed hype around their newest gaming console the way Microsoft did with their Xbox Series X reveal event.
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The prima facie of the event will obviously be the price points for the new PS5 consoles. The third party games under development will take a back seat for sure. The spotlight will fall primarily on the PS5 All-Digital Edition. It is basically deliver the same performance as the PS5 Regular Model but without the disc drive.
The price drops are going to cut down on Sony’s profit margins. The console sports superior hardware. Custom AMD CPUs and GPUs and an 8 core CPU with Zen 2 architecture running up to 3.5 GHz adorn the console. The clock speed for the 10.28 teraflop GPU is 2.234 GHz. PS5 also has a massive 16 GB of GDDR6 memory. Both the Xbox Series X and PS5 possess solid state drives for faster response and storage. Apart from backward compatibility with older generation PS4 games, the PS5 will also sport an 8k or 4k output with 120 frames per second. It is a powerful machine with a host of features. The Xbox Series X possesses a slightly weaker configuration but has a huge difference in price. Considering the PS5 will feature a new next generation controller with haptic feedback instead of the older and obsolete rumble technology adopted in the PS4, the price ranges are going to make many buyers overshoot on their budget.
Sony has a very limited time window to get things on track. Let’s hope they do.
Source: Gamereactor
