Sony has declined to comment on whether current economic pressures could lead the company to raise the price of the PlayStation 5.
In April, Sony raised Japanese prices for a range of consumer electronics products, including some cameras, Blu-ray players, home theater systems, headphones and speakers.
It said the price revisions were being made in light of the ongoing semiconductor shortage and other external factors that have pushed up the cost of raw materials, manufacturing and distribution.
Monthly PlayStation Plus Games – PS5 & PS4 – August 2022
During its Q1 earnings call on Friday, Sony was asked if it was considering raising the price of the PS5 in the face of similar market pressures.
“Regarding a potential price increase for the PS5, there is nothing concrete I can share with you about pricing at this time,” replied executive vice president and chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki (transcribed by VGC).
In recent months, analysts have predicted that products that rely on semiconductors will become more expensive as chipmakers raise their prices and the companies that buy them, in turn, pass the costs on to consumers.
Earlier this week, Reality Labs announced plans to raise the price of its Meta Quest 2 VR headset by $100, a decision it attributed to increased manufacturing and shipping costs.
In May, Forrester analyst Glenn O’Donnell told CNBC that he expected chip prices to rise 10 to 15 percent next year.
“Chipmakers are facing their own growing supply issues that are exacerbated by the war in Ukraine … and demand remains high while supply remains tight,” he said. “Energy prices are also down, including electricity. Making wood chips requires a huge amount of electrical energy.”
In turn, he predicted that manufacturers would raise the price of computers, cars, toys, consumer electronics, appliances and many other products.
“Margins are already tight on these products, so they have no choice but to raise prices,” O’Donnell said.
Syed Alam, Accenture’s global semiconductor leader, also told CNBC that “products using more advanced chips such as GPUs (graphics processing units) and high-end CPUs (central processing units) are likely to rise in price”.
Sony released its first-quarter earnings on Friday, and the company’s gaming and networking services division saw a drop in sales and operating income after a significant decline in software sales.
It shipped 2.4 million PS5 units in the three months ended June 30, which is less than expected, but the company said there was no change to its previously announced forecast of 18 million of console sales for the fiscal year.
During its earnings call, Totoki said that Sony was unable to ship enough PS5s to meet consumer demand during the quarter.
“There were two major limitations that were imposed on us. One was the availability of parts and components, the other was the supply chain. With the availability of parts and components there are a lot of improvements, so we’re very hopeful, quite optimistic about that.
“For supply chain disruption, we actually had great success in the first quarter. In the first quarter, hardware sales volume was quite a bit lower than we expected at the beginning of the year, so the supply chain disruption is something we hope will be fully addressed.”