Sony executives have revealed during a Q&A in a meeting regarding the company’s Game & Network Services division that the console maker isn’t planning on selling hardware at a loss.
One attendee referred to the “next generation platform” and asked Sony bigwigs whether it was “reasonable to assume that your pricing will continue to prioritise profitability of the hardware, as it does today.” The hardware manufacturer’s response notes that it is continuing to monitor the situation in regards to rising component prices, nothing that it wants the value its hardware offers to be recognised by consumers.
First, we regard hardware as the base for providing the gaming experience, and by offering products such as the PlayStation Portal Remote Player (PS Portal), we aim to provide experiences tailored to users’ play styles beyond the living room, which has traditionally been considered the primary usage environment.
As for pricing, it is not realistic for us to absorb all component cost increases, and we have already implemented some price increases outside Japan. At present, however, sales are proceeding as planned, and we do not believe this has led to a decline in customer demand.
As a principle, we do not intend to sell hardware at significant losses. At the same time, we are carefully monitoring the market and continuing to evaluate our approach. We believe it is important for us to make every effort to ensure that customers fully understand the value we provide in relation to pricing.
As reported earlier today, hardware leaker Kepler_L2 has claimed that it costs Sony nearly $1,000 to assemble the PS6 at present, although stated that there would be no point in delaying the system as it wouldn’t mean we’d get an upgraded performance. Recently, Sony’s Hiroki Totoki stated that it hasn’t yet decided on a price or release date for the PS6, which still has yet to be officially announced.
“We have not yet decided on at what timing we will launch the new console, or at what prices,” he said back in May this year, speaking in regards to its next console. “So we would like to really observe and follow the situation. Looking at the current circumstances, the memory price is also expected to be very high FY 2027, because there will still be a shortage of supply. So under that assumption, we must think carefully what we will do.”
[Source – Sony Q&A via VGC]