PS5 costly parts reportedly increasing production cost to $450, launch exclusives running on PS4

PS5 costs around $450 to manufacture, according to a report from Bloomberg.

This price is higher than initially anticipated as some materials, in particular DRAM and NAND flash memory, which has been made more difficult to obtain. The reason is that the newest wave of the smartphone is doing an extensive usage of them (Samsung Galaxy S20 will come to the U.S. with a minimum of 12GB).

With such a production cost, it’s highly unlikely for Sony to sell PlayStation 5 at the same $399 PS4 shipped within 2013.

The company is said to have taken a wait-and-see approach for what matters the launch price in regards to Microsoft, which is also expected to launch Xbox Series X by the end of 2020.

The report also reveals that, differently from what we heard in the recent past, PS5 games are expected to release on PlayStation 4, too, to increase revenues from the software at least in the launch window of the next-generation machine.

On top of that, the Japanese platform owner is said to have canceled several features initially planned for PS5, including a mirrorless camera, due to the scarce amount of DRAM available at the moment.

A new PlayStation VR headset is still on the way, at any rate, and is said to be in development for a release after PlayStation 5 ships in late 2020.

The platform owner has never debunked rumors of interest in building a PlayStation VR 2 but has always stated that it would not be coming alongside PlayStation 5.

Analyst Daniel Ahmad is confirming this report based on his independent sources, and adding that Xbox Series X is expected to have higher manufacturing prices, likely due to stronger specs, ranging between $460 and $520. Microsoft is anticipated to be revealing its next console’s price at E3 2020 in June.

This would lead Sony to release PlayStation 5 quite safely at $499, a price tag that has already been tested and proved successful on higher specced consoles such as Xbox Series X in 2017.

PS4’s manufacturing price was around $381, but considering accessories expenses such as shipments and more, PS4 was sold at a loss as the total bill for each console was higher than the $399 RRP.

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