Sony declined to be fired on whether current economic pressures might lead the company to raise the price of the PlayStation 5.
In April, Sony raised Japanese prices for a range of consumer electronics, including some cameras, Blu-ray players, home theater systems, headphones and speakers.
He said the price revisions were made in light of the current shortage of semiconductors and other external factors that have driven up the cost of raw materials, manufacturing and distribution.
PlayStation Plus monthly games – PS5 and PS4 – August 2022
During its first-quarter earnings call on Friday, Sony was asked if it would consider raising the price of the PS5 in the face of similar market pressures.
“About a potential PS5 price increase, at this time I can’t share anything specific with you on pricing,” EVP and CFO Hiroki Totoki replied (transcribed by VGC).
In recent months, analysts have predicted that products that rely on semiconductors will become more expensive as chipmakers raise prices and the companies that buy them in turn pass the costs on to consumers.
Earlier this week, Reality Labs announced plans to raise the price of its Meta Quest 2 VR headset by $100, a move it attributed to rising manufacturing and shipping costs.
In May, Forrester analyst Glenn O’Donnell told CNBC he expected chip prices to rise about 10-15% in the coming year.
“Chipmakers are facing their own growing supply issues which are exacerbated by the war in Ukraine…and demand remains high while supply remains constrained,” he said. “Energy prices are also falling, including electricity. Manufacturing chips requires a huge amount of electrical energy.
In turn, he predicted that manufacturers would raise the price of PCs, cars, toys, consumer electronics, home appliances and many other products.
“Margins are already tight on these products, so they have no choice but to raise prices,” O’Donnell said.
Syed Alam, global head of semiconductors at Accenture, also told CNBC that “prices for products that use more advanced chips such as GPUs (graphics processing units) and high-end processors (CPUs) are likely to increase.
Sony released its first-quarter results on Friday, with the company’s Game & Network Services division experiencing a drop in sales and operating profit following a significant drop in software sales.
It shipped 2.4 million PS5 units in the three months ended June 30, which is less than expected, but the company said there was no change from its previously announced forecast of 18 million console sales for the fiscal year.
During its earnings call, Totoki said Sony was unable to ship enough PS5s to meet consumer demand during the quarter.
“There were two big constraints imposed on us. One was the availability of parts and components, the other was the supply chain. With the availability of parts and components, there are a lot of improvements, so we’re very optimistic about that.
“For the supply chain disruption, we actually took a big hit in the first quarter. In the first quarter, the volume of hardware for sales was much lower than we had expected at the start of the year, so the supply chain disruption is something that we hope will be completely resolved.