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PS5 Digital Edition 'Blew It', According To Analyst
Sony’s decision to sell the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition at its current price may end up being a mistake, according to one analyst who says the console maker “really blew it” with the disc-less edition. PS5 pre-orders went live in September, starting off with a chaotic debut that crashed retailer websites and ended with lots of pre-orders cancelled after they were placed.
The PS5 pre-order kick-off was a debacle across the board, but it was especially bad for fans who wanted to pick up the console’s digital edition. Stock allocation for that version of the console was even lower than that of the standard PS5, and retailers seemed to sell out of the lower-priced PS5 Digital Edition almost as soon as pre-orders became available. From the start, it appeared that Sony was producing far fewer digital PS5s than fans had demand for.
Now, one game industry analyst says that Sony “blew it” with the PS5 digital edition. Speaking to GameBolt, analyst Michael Pachter says that every digital edition PS5 Sony sells is actually costing the manufacturer money. According to Pachter, Sony is likely just breaking even with each sale of the standard PS5, so considering the $100 lower price for the digital edition compared to the actual cost of a disc drive, he estimates that the company is losing about $40 on every one that it sells. While Pachter notes that Sony makes an additional $6 on every digital game sale, he doesn’t think that the average players will actually buy enough games to make up for the initial loss on the console sale and start making money for Sony. He also doubts that many players would want to go for the digital PS5 in the first place, speculating that most buyers will opt for the standard edition instead.
If Sony is in fact putting itself in such a bad position with the PS5 Digital Edition, it could explain why the company seems to be producing fewer of them than the standard model. It would make sense for Sony to push buyers toward the standard edition, particularly if Pachter is right that the all-digital version isn’t expected to be that popular anyway. The bigger question is why Sony would go to the trouble of releasing a separate console edition at all if it loses the company money and doesn’t seem likely to bring many new players into the PlayStation ecosystem in exchange.
Whatever Sony’s reasons are for producing the PS5 Digital Edition and potentially taking a loss on each one, it’s clear that the next-gen console overall is already headed for a massive launch. With demand so high that some retailers are warning of pre-orders going unfilled until next year, it looks like Sony won’t have much trouble selling as many units as it’s able to make.
