When the PlayStation 5 launched almost five and a half years ago, it was priced at £449 in the UK. Today, if you buy it at the recommended price, it costs £569.99, while the Pro model costs £789.99. Sony has recently increased the price again by £90.
This is unprecedented: historically, consoles decrease in price over time (until they become retro collectibles – I recently saw someone asking £200 for an SNES on Vinted).
But what’s going on? Unfortunately, this is another case of artificial intelligence ruining everything for everyone. AI data centers require a lot of computing power to show you lies every time you search for something on Google, which has increased the demand and price of RAM and data storage. That’s not the only reason — the wars in Ukraine and Iran have caused global economic turmoil, and inflation has hit the profits of many companies. But AI is the easiest reason to get people angry, because it shouldn’t be that way.
As my former Kotaku colleague Chris Person says: “I’m tired of these idiots making computers so expensive.” PC gamers have been hit the hardest, as Nvidia suddenly became the world’s most valuable company thanks to its investments in AI. In October, its market capitalization hit £5 trillion(!), and the most expensive graphics cards cost more than £1,000. While shareholders may be cheering, consumers looking to buy video game components are paying a premium.
As Sony's price hikes show, you don't have to be a PC gamer to be affected. Valve has finished Steam Decks and is trying to make more. Nintendo is making fewer Switch 2s and just raised the price of physical games by $10 in the US.
This price hike isn’t just Sony’s greed – it’s in line with the general inflation of the last six years. But life has become almost 30% more expensive in half a decade, and the AI bubble is fueling that. A small group of wealthy people are making a lot of money by imposing technologies we don’t want, while the ones we do want become unaffordable. We’re paying more for a PlayStation so idiots can use ChatGPT to scam people on dating apps.
Person emphasizes that these people don’t love computers. “I grew up working with computers,” he writes. “I find joy in rewiring closed devices that would otherwise become trash, like cleaning robots or Amazon devices, and giving them an ethical second life… AI enthusiasts don’t love computers; they want money and a mis-property LLM to do their job.”
This is not about Sony's greed, but rather shows the degradation at the heart of big tech – a closed economic system that makes everything harder for the many, only for the benefit of the few.
Game to try:
Hozy is a relaxing game about cleaning, renovating, and decorating rooms. Sort of like Unpacking, but with better lighting and a better furniture catalog. It starts with you clearing out the trash and sweeping the floor, and ends with you turning on the radio that you put in a newly painted corner. It doesn't have a strong story like Unpacking, but if you like fixing things up, you'll enjoy it. After finishing it, I downloaded Furnish Master because Steam has discounts on home furnishing games.
Available on: PC
Game time: about three hours
/Express newspaper/
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