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The story
A thread went up on 5ch’s “Hardware & Industry” board (nicknamed “Geha,” short for “gêmu hādo,” i.e. game hardware) asking how Sony could possibly release the next-gen PS6 for under ¥79,980 (roughly $533). The current PS5 Pro retails for ¥137,980 (~$920), and since the PS6 is expected to outperform it, most posters agreed that hitting barely half that price is physically impossible. The thread floated idea after idea — selling the controller, disc drive, and SSD separately from the console; having Sony eat the loss by selling at a deficit (“gyakuzaya,” or reverse margin); or just dialing back the specs — but the conversation kept circling back to the same conclusion: “it’ll end up expensive anyway” and “that won’t make it sell.”
What people said
No controller.
No USB cable.
Sounds like it'd end up around ¥200,000 (~$1,333) lol
Eat a massive loss to drive adoption.
Problem is, Totoki won't allow it.
Throw it in free as a bonus with a ¥5,000,000 (~$33,000) electric car.
Then people just won't buy games and stick to free-to-play ones.
Controller: ¥10,000.
SSD: several tens of thousands of yen more.
Add it all up and you're basically back to PS5 Pro pricing — depressing.
SSD, controller, cables, memory, and OS all sold separately.
keep selling a magazine with a part attached, over 50 weekly issues.
Issue 1 comes with the CPU (launch issue priced at ¥980, about $6.50).
Then bail right around week 49.
The fact that the Pro, at over ¥100,000, isn't really wanted by the mainstream says it all.
Under ¥79,980 might actually be the right target.
But the real ceiling most ordinary people will spend on a game console is ¥50,000 (~$333) or less — that's why the original Switch took off. Go past that and it stops feeling like a toy and starts feeling like a real purchase.
I barely bought games on PS5 — definitely buying even less on a PS6.
Yeah, and even Monster Hunter and Final Fantasy aren't staying PlayStation-exclusive or timed-exclusive anymore anyway.
In other words, it's checkmate.
Split software compatibility based on whether it's been expanded, like the N64's Expansion Pak.
that alone would bring the price down a lot.
isn't the multi-language Digital Edition of the PS5 already ¥90,000 (~$600)?
No way Sony prices the PS6 cheap just for the Japanese market.
Under ¥79,980 feels like the ceiling for something with specs on par with the current PS5, doesn't it?
That's exactly why everyone's saying sell it piecemeal!
No manual, no box either —
sell it loose like a bag of vegetables lol
Come to think of it, haven't seen bulk/no-frills packaging like that in a while.
Too bad I'm one of the lowly peasants.
Might just be talking about Torikizoku 🦆
Background and Key Points of the Debate
The current PS5 Pro retails for ¥137,980 (~$920), and since the next-gen PS6 is expected to outperform it, hitting ¥79,980 under a conventional pricing model simply isn’t realistic. The ideas floated in the thread — selling the controller, disc drive, and SSD separately, or having Sony absorb a loss through “gyakuzaya” (reverse-margin) pricing — extend a strategy the console industry has used for decades: prioritize a low launch price during the adoption phase, sell the hardware below cost, and recoup the difference through software sales. But with a weak yen and rising semiconductor costs compounding the problem, opinion was split on whether that old playbook still works today. The debate boiled down to two competing views: that stripping out components genuinely lowers the console’s price, versus that once you tally up the cost of all those now-separate accessories, the total comes out the same either way. One thing worth flagging so it isn’t mistaken for fact: this price point is pure speculation and wishful thinking from 5ch posters — Sony has made no official announcement of a PS6 price or release date.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (“Hardware & Industry” / “Geha”) thread “[Urgent Request] How to Get the PS6 Under ¥79,980.”
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