Sony said Wednesday that it could increase the prices of consumer goods or transfer the manufacture of its playstation to the United States to relieve the planned charge of the tariff policy of President Donald Trump, possibly joining Nintendo and Microsoft in increasing prices for players.
Key data
Sony’s financial director, Lin Tao, said during a profit conference on Wednesday that tariffs will affect their hardware production, games and semiconductors, which can lead to the company to increase the prices of consumer goods, although it did not mention the PlayStation 5 by its name.
Hiroki Totoki, president of Sony, said that PlayStation 5, which currently occurs in China, could occur in the United States to avoid tariff increases, although Polygon Games publication reported that moving its manufacturing capabilities could take years.
Sony has already increased the prices of the PlayStation 5 abroad after Trump’s tariff announcement: the company increased the price of the console by 25% in Europe, Australia and New Zealand in April, citing “a challenging economic environment, which includes high inflation and fluctuating exchange rates”.
Joost Van Dreunen, professor at the Stern Business School at the University of New York that teaches about the video game business, told Forbes that because Sony has “increased prices everywhere except in the US. UU.
Van Dreunen described Sony’s possible turn towards manufacturing in the United States as “strategically complicated” because the company would have to coordinate labor, suppliers and other logistic manufacturing aspects: “Even if the PS5 and the PS6 can be manufactured in the country, it is not clear that it should be so”.
Sony projected lower PlayStation sales for next year, with around 15 million units sent, below 18.5 million units sent in the year that ended in March 2025 and almost 21 million the previous year.
It also influences the perspectives of the PlayStation 5 The delay of the long -awaited Grand Theft Auto VI, Bloomberg reported, which was planned to be launched at the end of this year, but was delayed until May 2026, which could depress console sales.
Cita Crucial
“In general, this is a warning to consumers: physical goods, especially high -end hardware, will be more expensive,” said Van Dreune to Forbes, warning that “companies need maneuvering margin to manage profitability. That means higher prices.”
How have Trump tariffs affected the prices of video games?
The same day that Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs, which affect almost all countries, Nintendo announced the long -awaited sequel to her Switch games console, Switch 2, at a higher price than many players and analysts expected. The console is priced at $ 450, 50% higher than the $ 300 cost tariffs, since Switch consoles occur mainly in China and Vietnam. Some next games for Switch 2, including “Mario Kart World”, are price of $ 80, breaking the previous standard of the $ 70 industry for games. Weeks later, Microsoft announced that it would increase the prices of its Xbox consoles by at least 20% per model, citing “market conditions” and the increase in production costs. The most economical Xbox console, the S series with 512 GB of storage, rose price of $ 299.99 to $ 379.99, while the most expensive model, the Xbox Series X 2TB Galaxy Special Edition, rose from $ 599.99 to $ 729.99. The company also announced that it would sell some of its games for $ 80 just in time for the Christmas season, following Nintendo’s example by exceeding the previous standard price of $ 70.
Main critics
Matt Kahla, a creator of games content with more than 660,000 followers on Tiktok, urged followers in a video to buy PlayStation consoles before any possible price increase and suggested that Sony should keep prices below competition companies to attract customers. Dreamcastguy, a video game transmitter with more than 245,000 subscribers on YouTube, said in a video on Wednesday that he fears that video game prices do not lower even if the tariffs are relieved, criticizing Sony and other playgrounds for considering price increases that could make the games “prohibitively expensive.” Some players also criticized the possible Sony price increases in Reddit. “Do you remember when the consoles became cheaper over time? It has spent so much time,” says one of the main comments in a thread about possible Sony price increases in the states of the Game Subnet. Other players in Reddit’s thread accused games of playing tariffs as an excuse to increase prices and said the highest prices are not “pro-consumer.”
How much were the United States and China their tariff rates?
The United States and China announced earlier this week a 90 -day break in their tariffs, increasingly high, which is a respite in their commercial war. The American tariff on Chinese products will be reduced from 145 % to 30 %, while China’s tariffs over US products will be reduced from 125 % to 10 %.
This article was originally published by Forbes Us.
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