The rumors were true and Sony unveiled its new ‘PS5 Slim’ yesterday, although the official name is simply PS5. The console stands out for its new slimmer and more compact design than its predecessor, which was criticized for being excessively large.
According to Sony the volume of the new PS5 is 30% lower than the previous one, and the weight has also been reduced by up to 24% depending on the model we choose. The fundamental difference here is the “modular” design of the non-disc drive edition, which forces Sony to sell the console without a Blu-ray Disc (BD) drive to be able to attach this accessory if we decide to do so later.
This is good news for those who would rather go for the PS5 Digital Edition and save a little: the new PS5 costs $499, while the PS5 Digital Edition costs $449 in the US (tax excluded). In Europe, prices are €549.99 and €449.99 including VAT.
Things get even more interesting with the pricing of the new accessory, which is an external Blu-ray Disc drive that can be added to the PS5 Digital Edition. In the US, this unit costs $79.99 before tax, but in Europe it costs 119.99 euroswith VAT.
At Xataka, we wanted to do a little price comparison based on the price in the United States with reference taxes of 8%. In reality, this percentage usually varies between 6 and 10% depending on the state, so we set this intermediate value. Taking into account the prices converted into euros (at the current exchange rate, 1 dollar = 0.94 euros), the result is as follows.
Precio | US-EUROPE INCREASE | |
|---|---|---|
PS5 US (Excl. Tax, Euro) | 470.39 | |
PS5 US (8% IMP, Euro) | 508.02 | |
PS5 Europa (IVA INCL., Euro) | 549.99 | 8.26% more expensive |
PS5 Digital USA (Excl. Tax, Euro) | 423.26 | |
PS5 Digital USA (8% tax, EUR) | 457.12 | |
PS5 DIGITAL EUROPA (IVA INCLUDED, EURO) | 449.99 | -1.55% cheaper |
US Blu-RAY Drive (without IMP, Euro) | 75.40 | |
US Blu-RAY Drive (8% IMP, EUR) | 81.43 | |
Blu-ray drive EUROPA (VAT, EURO) | 119.99 | 47.35% more expensive |
As you can see, the consoles end up being more or less the same price here and there after taxes are taken into account, with the PS5 costing a bit more and, surprisingly, the PS5 Digital Edition costing a bit less in Europe.
A surprise comes from BD unit which is much more expensive in Europe: almost 50%In fact, that seems hard to explain, given that another accessory launched by Sony, support for horizontal use of the console, costs $29.99 in the US before tax and €29.99 in Europe.
These types of decisions are unique, but this isn’t the first time Sony has done something like this: using the excuse of inflation, the PS5 increased its price in August 2022, but did so in Europe, not the US. In fact, the price increase for exclusive games announced in 2020 also applied in Europe, but not in the United States.
The difference in the case of the Blu-ray Disc drive is of course exclusive in Europe, and here’s an interesting fact: in the US, the price difference between the two PS5s is only $50, while in Europe the difference is €100: As if they wanted to increase the sale of the digital edition. and here they prefer to sell more complete PS5s with a built-in unit.
Perhaps a logistics strategy? It’s impossible to know for sure. The only obvious thing is that if you prefer to save money and go for the digital version, adding a BD device later on will cost you more.
In Xataka | Sony already has its answer to Xbox Cloud Gaming: streaming 4K PS5 games directly to the console
