The price of Sony’s current console is set to go up in Australia and New Zealand, as US tariffs bite the cost of living.
If you needed another reason to point a frustrated finger at what’s going on in the US, then you also probably need to look to the cost of goods and services. Specifically, with the price of everything including technology set to rise courtesy of the Trump administration’s tariffs.
While we’re still not sure whether anyone running the country really understands who pays for the cost of tariffs in the end, the fallout is already seeing at least one part of the tech sector pay the price: games.
An exclusion has been carved for hardware for phones and computer chips (to a degree), but over in the world of video games, Sony is preparing for an increase in components by increasing the price of the PlayStation 5 across Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.
Effective immediately this week, the rather excellent (but already pricey) PlayStaton 5 with a Blu-ray drive (the “Disc Edition”) goes from $799.95 to $829.95, while the disc-less “Digital Edition” has a more steep jump from $679.95 to $749.95. Meanwhile, the optical drive for use with the Digital Edition falls from $159.95 to $124.95.
It’s one of the first obvious signs of the tariffs effective the prices of tech, even though the hints from other companies seem pretty clear.
