How Much Does The Playstation 5 Cost

PS5 price is not really $499 — this is the truthful cost

(Image credit: Sony)

Sony'due south PS5 might split opinion on its looks, but in that location'southward no question it'south one seriously impressive gaming machine. For $499 (£449 in the U.K.) you can get a 4K panel that you lot'd need to spend well over $1,500 if you lot wanted to buy one of the all-time gaming PCs or build an equivalent yourself.

And then there'due south the $399 (£359) PS5 Digital Edition, which offers the same ability as the standard console just it drops the Blu-ray drive. And with speedy a PCIe 4.0 SSD, both machines are packed with proper next-generation tech for less than $500. Sounds similar a deal, correct? Well not quite.

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Even if you tin can find where to buy a PS5, $399 is the bare minimum y'all'll pay for the console, as in that location's a lot more you'll need to spend on it to become the most out of the PS5. So here's what we consider to exist the true cost of the PS5.

SSD upgrade: $200/£200 estimated

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While the PS5 has an 825GB SSD, only 667.2GB of information technology is actually available for y'all to employ, with the operating system and other software needed for the console's functioning taking upwards a big chunk of the SSD's capacity. That would be fine if modern games didn't counterbalance in at around 50GB, and sometimes a lot more than. And then if you lot desire to have an extensive library of games on your PS5 you'll need to be prepared to upgrade the storage.

As it stands, there are no Sony certified PICe 4.0 SSDs bachelor yet. Merely given the Xbox Series Ten's proprietary 1TB PCIe 4.0 external SSD expansion bill of fare costs $219/£219, nosotros can't imagine an SSD upgrade for the PS5 is going to be cheap. We'd expect yous'll need to pay out another $200/£200 to get a 1TB SSD to heave the console's internal storage.

Pulse 3D Wireless headset: $99/£89

Sony PS5 Pulse 3D wireless headset — (Image credit: Sony)

The PS5 comes with Sony'southward custom Tempest 3D AudioTech, which delivers rich 360-degree audio through smart processing in order to deliver a better aural experience for PS5 games. While the tech will supposedly work with some existing TVs, to get the full experience hither and now, you need the PS5 Pulse 3D Wireless headset.

At $99/£89 it'south surprisingly affordable for a gaming headset that needs to exist used with proprietary tech. But that even so ways you're adding another chunk of change to the overall price of the PS5.

Spare DualSense controller: $69/£59

Sony PS5 Dualsense Controller — (Image credit: Sony via thegameawards YouTube)

Sony's DualSense controller is a rather special peripheral given its advanced haptics that can — when implemented well — deliver a more tactile and immersive gaming experience. (Our own Marshall Honorof idea the DualSense was a gimmick until he played Demon's Souls). But you only go one DualSense controller in the PS5'southward box. While the controller is hands recharged via USB-C, it only lasts some four to half dozen hours.

So y'all might want to have a spare controller handy for when your main 1 runs out of electrical juice mid-gaming session. Or if you lot accept friends around and want to play some split-screen multiplayer when the coronavirus pandemic subsides. To practice that you need to fork out an actress $69/£59, which isn't an unreasonable price for a pretty advanced controller. But a second DualSense means the cost of owning a PS5 creeps up withal again.

PlayStation Plus: $59/£49 per twelvemonth

If you desire to become access to multiplayer games and the online elements of titles like Demon's Souls, as well every bit cloud saves, and so y'all need a PlayStation Plus subscription.

The most affordable way to do that is to pay for a yearly subscription, which will set you back $59/£49 per annum. It might seem a piffling stingy, given Microsoft offers free Xbox cloud saves, and PC gamers have long enjoyed subscription-costless access to multiplayer gaming platforms every bit well as cloud salve and sync systems. But that's just the situation with Sony and its PlayStation consoles, similar it or not.

PS5 exclusive games: $118/£118

Demon's Souls review: The best reason to own a PS5 — (Image credit: Sony)

The PS5 is ushering in a generation of games that volition cost up to $seventy/£70 a game, which means you're going to have to get used to spending a good amount more on games if you lot desire to become them as soon as they come out. Permit's say you lot've merely got a PS5, and then your principal choice of exclusives are Spider-Human: Miles Morales and Demon'due south Souls, costing $49/£49 and $69/£69 respectively on the PlayStation Shop.

As getting ane game for the PS5 doesn't really make sense, nosotros're going to presume you'll want both to become yourself started on Sony'south new console. That means you'll demand to office with $118/£118, which is a pretty hefty amount for two games, one of which is basically an expansion pack to a 2018 game — as well equally a being available on the PS4 — and the other is a remake, albeit a grimly beautiful one, of a 2009 game. Fancy a third-party game, with next-gen graphics? Then you could opt for Assassin's Creed Valhalla, which will still set you back $59/£59, though the game has been discounted for the holiday flavor. While you lot can wait for game sales, getting a suite of PS5 games to get started with isn't going to exist cheap.

The true toll of the PS5: $1,044/£964 for the standard PS5; $944/£874 for the PS5 Digital Edition

When all the peripherals, games, and near-essential extras are taken into business relationship you'll be looking at parting with at to the lowest degree $944/£874 for the PS5 Digital Edition, and up to $1,044/£964 for the standard PS5. That'south quite a large amount of money for a gaming motorcar that's locked into a single ecosystem.

For that amount of coin, you can build a decent gaming PC, though you'll need to shop around. And PC games are considerably cheaper, with PC gaming offering an enormous amount to play from cut-edge titles to obscure indie creations to games from decades ago.

But if you lot want to game at 4K, or at least at dynamic resolutions that scale up to 4K, you'll need to spend a fair bit more on a gaming PC. Then 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 out beyond the globe. Just wait until 2021 when the demand has evened out a fleck and you could country yourself a bargain bundle, also equally have a larger choice of games to choose from; nosotros believe 2021 is going to be the twelvemonth of the PS5.

Roland Moore-Colyer a Managing Editor at Tom's Guide with a focus on news, features and opinion articles. He often writes about gaming, phones, laptops and other bits of hardware; he'south also got an involvement in cars. When not at his desk Roland can be found wandering around London, frequently with a look of curiosity on his face.