Sony has announced another price hike for PlayStation 5 consoles, increasing their prices by between $100 and $150. The Digital Edition will now cost $600, the base model with an optical drive will be priced at $650, and the Pro version is set to a staggering $900.

The rise in prices for gaming consoles follows a global shortage of memory chips, primarily due to increased demand from AI data centers. These shortages have already affected PC components, causing supply issues and price increases across various consumer technology products.

While this isn't the first time console manufacturers have hiked up their prices, it is the most significant increase for the PS5 since its launch in 2020. In January 2025, these models were priced at $450, $500, and $700 respectively.

The shift towards producing more memory chips for AI accelerators like Nvidia’s H200 has left less supply for consumer electronics. Manufacturers such as Kioxia have indicated that their capacity is sold out until the end of 2026, making it difficult to predict when prices might stabilize or decrease.

Given the complexity and time required to ramp up manufacturing capacity, high memory chip prices are likely to persist in the short-to-medium term. This could lead to a paradigm shift in how we view gaming consoles as historically expensive compared to their counterparts from previous generations at this stage of their lifecycle.