We’re finally here, folks! Sony has come to party, arms laden full of gifts and they’re not shy about who gets them! Following Sony’s digital showcase last night, we finally have a solid idea of what we can expect to pay for the next-gen console it feels like most people are actually excited for. That might be speaking without properly delving into the stats but South Africa has historically been a very PlayStation focused country so it seems fair to say that most people are getting very excited about the PlayStation 5 and for good reason! We’ll get into everything Sony showed off last night later today but for now…let’s talk about that price.
Local pricing for the PlayStation 5 was announced early this morning and it’s exactly what we were expecting, if not slightly better. The actual PlayStation 5, which includes the Ultra HD Blue-Ray disc drive, will retail for R12,000 while the Digital Edition will come in at R10,000. The only difference between the two is that the PS5 Digital Edition doesn’t come with the disc drive but other than that, it’s got the same specs and internals of the base PS5. Both versions of the console will launch on 19 November, a week after it launches in the United States, UK and other very lucky countries.
See you this November! pic.twitter.com/KCZiJ97SuA
— PlayStation South Africa (@PlayStation_SA) September 17, 2020
Now, in comparison to the Xbox Series X, the price comes in at the same so if you’re all in on next-gen it really comes down to whether you want in on Sony’s exclusive market or Microsoft’s Game Pass ecosystem. However, the Digital Edition of the PS5 costs R3,000 more than the smaller Xbox Series S, which will retail at R7,000. Difference being that the Xbox Series S is running weaker hardware in comparison to its bigger sibling while the Digital PS5 features the same hardware as the base PS5, just without the disk drive.
What I’m saying here is that the digital version of the PS5 is justifiably more expensive that Microsoft’s Xbox Series S. It’s more powerful in every way, so that bumped up price is warranted. Look, either way both the Xbox Series X/S and the PS5 are incredible machines and you should be stoked with whichever option you settle on. Don’t be fooled, there’s no “console war”. It’s just about having fun however you want!
