We Finally Know The PS5 Release Date And Price
It's been a long wait, but we finally know when the PlayStation 5 is going to hit store shelves. Not only that, but we have price points for both the standard edition PS5 and the Digital Edition of the console.
According to Sony's latest PlayStation showcase, both models of the PlayStation 5 will launch on Nov. 12, 2020 in the U.S. and several other territories. Those elsewhere around the globe will be able to pick up a PlayStation 5 on Nov. 19, 2020. The standard PlayStation model — the one that includes a Blu-ray disc drive — will be priced at $499.99. The Digital Edition, which omits the Blu-ray drive in order to cut down costs, will come in at $399.99.
The PlayStation Twitter account posted that pre-orders for the PlayStation 5 will start tomorrow, Sept. 17. Fans can place those pre-orders with "select retailers," though Sony didn't go into detail about which stores planned to take part.
Many expected Sony to reveal the release date and price for the PlayStation 5 today, as Microsoft has already made that information available for both the Xbox Series X and the Xbox Series S. What might be more unexpected, however, is just how close the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles will be launching to each other. The Xbox Series X and S both arrive on Nov. 10, 2020. With the PlayStation 5 launch happening only two days later, gamers will seemingly have a tough decision ahead of them if they're torn between Team Xbox and Team PlayStation.
As far as cost is concerned, it has been kind of a bumpy road getting to the price point reveal for the PlayStation 5. Over the last few months in particular, we have seen a few apparent leaks and false alarms pop up in regards to the PS5's pricing.
Back in April, it was reported that a Canadian branch of video game retailer Play N Trade had listed the PlayStation 5 at an improbably low price. At the time, Play N Trade was listing the PlayStation 5 for preorder at a baffling CAD$559. That's a little below $400 USD. The prevailing theory at the time was that this was just an amount customers could put into the PS5 pre-order as a downpayment. Though the price was later removed, it made some fans momentarily excited that the console could actually be bizarrely cheap.
After that, an apparent leak in mid-June seemingly revealed a price point much closer to what fans were expecting. Amazon France briefly listed the standard edition at around $500. This was another listing that was quickly pulled down. However, it was unclear at the time whether it was because Amazon France had accidentally leaked the correct price before it was supposed to or if it had genuinely been an error.
There was also a placeholder listing on Amazon UK that briefly showed an insanely high price point for the PlayStation 5. However, it also listed specs for the console that didn't line up with previous reports, so luckily everyone pretty much dismissed that one. Still, the back and forth has given fans whiplash leading up to this actual price reveal.
Even outside of all of the various leaks, PlayStation fans have been bracing themselves to possibly spend a pretty penny on the PS5. In an interview with the BBC in June, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan said that the company was focusing on "value as opposed to price." In other words, the company expected the console to be pricey, but has focused on making the price worth the customer's money.
At the end of the day, the price difference between the standard console and the Digital Edition may prove to be the biggest deciding factor in what console most fans buy. It has also been pointed out recently that most physical video game discs don't actually tend to hold all of the data for larger modern games. In other words, unless you're a collector of physical media, it's probably more cost effective in the long run to go with the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition.
We'll see which one players tend to gravitate toward when the console launches this November.
It'll be interesting to see how Microsoft responds to the PlayStation 5's release date and price point, if at all. With the Xbox Series S at $299, the PlayStation 5 Digital at $399, and both the Series X and PlayStation 5 at $499, the two companies have combined to hit three different price points. With Sony aggressively starting pre-orders for the PS5 tomorrow, it seems we're about to have a very exciting next-gen console battle on our hands.