It’s about time gamers started voting with their wallets against Sony and its ever-rising PlayStation costs

I have been banging this drum for a while. The mealy-mouthed excuses when the price of the PlayStation 5 was ramped up a few months ago paid mere lip service to the people that matter – the customers.

We all know components are costing more money, but equally, we know Sony is making billions out of perhaps the only real viable gaming console out there right now, so to squeeze, because that’s what it is, an extra $100+ or so out of an individual, in many cases family who is buying for a child, to keep profit margins, not even just profit up, I think, is unacceptable.

Many companies secretly smile with glee when bombs start falling. It allows the nebulous excuse of “current world events” to be dusted off once more. The current world event is that you want to make more money. Just admit it. Quick, Hormuz this, Hormuz that.

When Sony put the price up of their PlayStation 5 by such a huge amount recently, there was nothing anybody could do. You can hardly go and jump into the Xbox (sorry XBOX) ecosystem with any degree of certainty right now. They did give people a week or two to panic buy in advance, as well, causing sales to shoot up. That was clever.

We said at the time that if we don’t have strong competition, it allows one company to start to dominate the marketplace and do as it pleases. Only yesterday, we bemoaned that while Xbox was fiddling, virtual Rome was in flames, and as if to hammer the point home, Sony announced late yesterday that prices for its subscription service PS+ were to rise due to, go on, have a guess, “ongoing market conditions”.

Let’s look at that shall we. For starters prices are only going up for new subscribers, you know like the ones that are about to get dragged into buying a console and signing up for PS+ because perhaps the biggest game of all time, GTA VI is about to come out and sell PlayStations by the truckload.

What possible market conditions only affect people who aren’t even in your system yet?

Secondly, prices remain the same as long as you don’t lapse your subscription, which I personally find a bit predatory. All subscriptions are going up at the moment, because “capitalism, baby!” and quite often, the first to get chopped is the gaming one as we tighten our wallets in order to put food on the table. You can leave your PS+ subscription, of course, but it will cost you more if you come back and want to play online when GTA VI comes out, even if you have been a loyal customer for years. Market conditions see. We can’t help you, bro. Hormuz this, Hormuz that.

Sony doesn’t even care that Microsoft has just cut the price of Game Pass; Xbox is so irrelevant to them right now. PlayStation is where people will play Grand Theft Auto VI, and they know it.

All those PlayStation fanboys and girls who celebrated and took the piss when Xbox started releasing its exclusives elsewhere, dancing on the grave, this is what it bought you, A monopoly where “For The Players” has been wiped from the annals of history. This is anything but. This is for the shareholders.

If you want to play GTA VI, this doesn’t apply because it’s not coming out on PC until who knows when, since that wouldn’t sell consoles. But we bought our kid a decent-spec no-brand gaming PC with a 3080 GPU for less than £500 at Christmas. PC gaming is where it is at, don’t get fooled into thinking you need a two grand GPU, you don’t, certainly if you are only used to Xbox and PS5 levels of console. no monthly costs to play online, no subscription hostage situation, just gaming. He loves it, and his Xbox rarely gets used now.

More of you need to do the same. But if you are hellbent on spending getting on for a $1000 to play a new GTA game, then there is no helping you.

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