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To be at the cutting edge of technology means coughing up a lot of your hard-earned money for it. Consoles have always been an expensive hobby, with the long-time solace being that games were comparatively much more affordable. With both now jumping into obscene price ranges, it makes the hobby harder to get into.
Across the history of gaming consoles,PlayStationhas been at the forefront of high prices. From establishing a monopoly over certain regions to trying to push higher prices so they don’t have to sell consoles at a loss, it’s never been exactly affordable to buy its consoles. Some of them, however, do stand out as exceedingly more expensive than others.
The Price Of Every PlayStation Console At Launch
After a falling out with Nintendo over the creation of their original shared console design, Sony decided to strike it rich by itself, and created the PlayStation. Even against the competition of others, such as Nintendo itself,Sony carved out a market for itself, and then dominated itentirely over the next few decades.
The original PlayStation wasn’t an affordable console, but it offered a technological jump that no other console could match at the time. Let’s check out its price when it launched, as well as every other PlayStation console.
For consoles prior to the introduction of Euro,Great BritishPounds are used instead.
1994,1995
¥39,800, $299, £299
PlayStation 2
2000
2004, 2005
¥24,800, $249.99, €249
PlayStation 3
2006, 2007
¥60,000, $599.99, €599.99
2011, 2012
¥24,980, $249.99, €249.99
PlayStation 4
2013, 2014
¥39,980, $399.99, €399.99
PlayStation 5
2020
¥49,980, $499, €499
2023
¥29,980, $199.99, €219.99
The PS4 is the only PlayStation console to havelaunched in the West before Japan.
Looking across those prices, it is evident that it was never exactly cheap to become a PlayStation owner. Compared to its peers in Nintendo,Sony’s consoles were always more expensive, and by a significant margin. The Wii, a home console, cost as much as the PlayStation Portable. Yet that didn’t even stop Sony’s financial success.
PlayStation Consoles Adjusted For Inflation
However, prices do not remain stagnant. In fact, just about every major currency in the world has lost its value in the last few decades, making every console, even those from just a few years ago, all the more expensive. When you look at some of these prices adjusted for inflation,you might not think they were as reasonable as they seem.
¥46,154, $645, £737
¥45,537, $555, £645
¥28,910, $409, €385
¥69,968, $925, €884
¥29,407, $348, €332
¥45,669, $549, €522
¥55,641, $618, €614
PlayStation Portal
¥31,605, $210, €226
While purchasing power is somewhat relative to what everything else in your life costs as well, it is still quite dramatic to seejust how expensive consoles were back in the 1990’scompared to what we pay now. Prices are catching up, by all means, but they were still somewhat excessive then, too.
However, many of these consoles were recognized as quite expensive at the time, too, and had plenty of international price cuts to fit that. This was true in Japan as well, though thegeneral fluctuations in price haven’t been as dramaticwith the continually dropping value of the Yen.
Which PlayStation Console Is The Most Expensive?
With how inflation works, it isn’t a 1:1 thing. Just because the inflation puts a price at a dramatically higher price, it doesn’t quite equate to relative circumstances. With a general cost of living crisis,€500 now is a lot more to spend on a luxury than it was 20 years ago. All of that said, the answer for the most expensive PlayStation console isn’t surprising.
Without adjusting for inflation,the PS3 still remains the most expensive PlayStation console at launch internationally.When you do adjust it for inflation, it still remains the most expensive across the whole console lineup. A testament to just how obscenely priced it was at the time.
When we start looking for the next most expensive console is where things get a bit more interesting.In Japan, the PS5 is the next most expensive console, both at its initial launch price and when adjusted for inflation. This is in contrast with Western regions, where the original PlayStation remains the second-most expensive console.
Continuing from there, all regions tend to follow a similar trend until we reach the handheld consoles.In the West, the PS Vita has remained the cheapest ofall when price adjusted, while the PSP has the lowest price in Japan.
