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Sony’s PS5 might divide opinion on its looks, but there’s no question that it’s a truly impressive gaming machine. For $ 499 (£ 449 in the UK) you can get a 4K console that you would need to spend over $ 1,500 if you were to build an equivalent gaming PC.
Then there’s the $ 399 (£ 359) PS5 digital edition, which offers the same power as the standard console, only it drops the Blu-ray drive. And with a fast PCIe 4.0 SSD, both machines are packed with the right next-gen technology for less than $ 500. Sounds like a bargain, right? Well, not quite.
Even if you can find where to buy a PS5, $ 399 is the minimum you’ll pay for the console, as you’ll need to spend a lot more on it to get the most out of the PS5. So here is what we consider to be the true cost of the PS5.
SSD upgrade: $ 200 / £ 200 estimated
While the PS5 has an 825GB SSD, only 667.2GB is available for use, and the operating system and other software required to run the console take up a large chunk of the SSD’s capacity. That would be fine if modern games weren’t around 50GB and sometimes a lot more. So if you want to have an extensive library of games on your PS5, you will need to be prepared to upgrade the storage.
As is, there are no Sony certified PICe 4.0 SSDs available yet. But given that the Xbox Series X’s proprietary 1TB PCIe 4.0 external SSD expansion card costs $ 219 / £ 219, we can’t imagine an SSD upgrade for the PS5 would be cheap. We expect you will have to pay another $ 200 / £ 200 to get a 1TB SSD to increase the internal storage of the console.
Pulse 3D Wireless Headphones: $ 99 / £ 89
The PS5 comes with Sony’s custom version. Tempest 3D AudioTech, which offers rich 360-degree audio through intelligent processing to provide a better listening experience for PS5 games. While the technology will supposedly work with some existing TVs, to get the full experience here and now, you need the PS5 Pulse 3D Wireless Headphones.
At $ 99 / £ 89 it’s surprisingly affordable for a gaming headset to be used with proprietary technology. But that still means it’s adding another change to the overall price of the PS5.
Replacement DualSense controller: $ 69 / £ 59
Sony’s DualSense controller is quite a special peripheral given its advanced haptics that can, when implemented well, deliver a more tactile and immersive gaming experience. (Our own Marshall Honorof thought the DualSense was a gimmick until he played Demon’s Souls.) But you only get a DualSense controller in the PS5 box. While the controller is easily recharged via USB-C, it only lasts four to six hours.
So you may want to have a replacement controller on hand for when your main one runs out of power midway through your gaming session. Or if you have friends close by and want to play splitscreen multiplayer when the coronavirus pandemic subsides. To do that you have to fork out an additional $ 69 / £ 59, which is not an unreasonable price for a fairly advanced controller. But a second DualSense means that the cost of owning a PS5 increases once again.
PlayStation Plus: $ 59 / £ 49 per year
If you want to get access to multiplayer games and the online elements of titles like Demon’s Souls, as well as cloud saves, then you need a PlayStation Plus subscription.
The most affordable way to do this is to pay for an annual subscription, which will cost you $ 59 / £ 49 per year. It might seem a bit stingy, given that Microsoft offers free Xbox cloud saves, and PC gamers have long enjoyed subscription-free access to multiplayer gaming platforms, as well as cloud save and sync systems. But that’s just the situation with Sony and their PlayStation consoles, like it or not.
PS5 Exclusive Games: $ 118 / £ 118
The PS5 is ushering in a generation of games that will cost up to $ 70 / £ 70 per game, which means you’ll have to get used to spending a good deal more on games if you want to get hold of them as soon as they come out. out. Let’s say you’ve just owned a PS5, so your top pick for exclusives are Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Demon’s Souls, which cost $ 49 / £ 49 and $ 69 / £ 69 respectively on the PlayStation Store.
Since getting a game for the PS5 doesn’t make much sense, we’ll assume that you want both of you to start using Sony’s new console. That means you’ll need to part with $ 118 / £ 118, which is quite a hefty amount for two games, one of which is basically an expansion pack for a 2018 game, as well as being available on the PS4, and the other is a remake, albeit sadly beautiful, of a 2009 game. Fancy a third-party game with next-gen graphics? Then you could go for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, which will still cost you $ 59 / £ 59, although the game has been discounted for the holiday season. While you can wait for game sales, getting a set of PS5 games to start won’t be cheap.
The true cost of the PS5: $ 1,044 / £ 964 for the standard PS5; $ 944 / £ 874 for the PS5 digital edition
When all the near-essential peripherals, games and extras are taken into account, you’re thinking of parting from at least $ 944 / £ 874 for the PS5 digital edition and up to $ 1,044 / £ 964 for the standard PS5. That’s a lot of money for a gaming machine that’s locked into a single ecosystem.
For that amount of money, you can build a decent gaming PC, although you will have to shop around. And PC games are considerably cheaper, as PC games offer an enormous number of games, from cutting-edge titles to obscure indie creations and games from decades ago.
But if you want to play at 4K, or at least dynamic resolutions that scale up to 4K, you’ll have to spend a bit more on a gaming PC. So despite our calculations, the PS5 is still surprisingly good value.
Of course, getting a PS5 right now is extremely difficult, as the console has been selling all over the world. But wait until 2021 when demand has leveled off a bit and you can grab a bargain package, as well as have a wider selection of games to choose from; We believe that 2021 will be the year of the PS5.
