Förhandsbeställningar för PS5 Digital Edition Midnight Black öppnar för 350 dollar i Japan

Sony opened pre-orders on October 20 for the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition Midnight Black, a 55,000 yen console that ships in Japan on November 19.

That is roughly $350, and nobody outside Japan can buy it. The console is digital-only; it lands the same day as GTA 6, and since no physical edition of that game is planned, the missing drive costs a buyer nothing. The cheapest new PS5 in the United States is still the $599.99 Digital Edition, which is the entry price anyone buying in for GTA 6 this November is looking at.

Sony has wrapped the console and the bundled DualSense in a matte black finish. Underneath it is the Japanese-language-only PS5 that Sony revealed in 2025, reissued in a new colour and sold under the international price because import tariffs and trade policy let Sony go lower in that one market. A Midnight Black disc drive is sold separately for 11,980 yen, about $75, for anyone who still wants to put a game in a tray.

Everywhere else the numbers moved the other way. Sony raised console prices worldwide on April 2, by $100 to $150 depending on the model, and put the PlayStation Portal up $50 to $249.99, three years after that handheld arrived. The same pull shows up in what sits around the console, including a God of War: Laufey Collector’s Edition that asks $170 and leaves out the game. Here is the current lineup.

• U.S.: PS5 $649.99, PS5 Digital Edition $599.99, PS5 Pro $899.99
• U.K.: PS5 £569.99, PS5 Digital Edition £519.99, PS5 Pro £789.99
• Europe: PS5 €649.99, PS5 Digital Edition €599.99, PS5 Pro €899.99
• Japan: PS5 ¥97,980, PS5 Digital Edition ¥89,980, PS5 Pro ¥137,980
• PlayStation Portal: $249.99, £219.99, €249.99, ¥39,980

The PS5 launched at $499.99 in November 2020. Sony took the US price to $549.99 last August, after raising it in Europe, the UK, Australia and New Zealand earlier. April put the standard model $150 above where it started, and Sony pointed to continued economic pressure worldwide. The Portal had launched in 2023 and had held its price until this year.

“After careful evaluation, we found this was a necessary step”

— Isabelle Tomatis, Sony Interactive Entertainment

The restrictions are what stop this being a loophole. Sony’s support pages state that the Japanese console runs only in Japanese and works only with PlayStation accounts registered to Japan, and that accounts from other countries are not supported. The machine reaches the Japanese PlayStation Store and nothing else, plays digital PS5 games bought there, and runs supported digital PS4 titles bought there. A buyer outside Japan would be running a Japanese storefront on a Japanese account and paying Japanese prices for every game on it.

Retailers hold the same line. Amazon Japan blocks the sale outside the country, and so do Rakuten and Yodobashi. Nintendo runs a similar split, with a region-locked and language-locked Switch 2 at 49,980 yen, about $315, against the $499.99 North American model.

For anyone outside Japan the workable version is a second-hand PS5 plus the Midnight Black console covers from PlayStation’s own store, or a new PS5 bought before the next increase. The covers cost a fraction of the gap between 55,000 yen and $599.99 and carry the same matte finish without the account problem. I own a PS5, and this is the first time the hardware has felt to me like a regional product rather than one machine sold everywhere.

Analysts had expected gaming hardware to get more expensive through 2026, with inflation, tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump and component shortages all pointing the same way. Microsoft is on the same track. Reporting on the new Xbox release window puts Project Helix at the 2028 holiday season with a retail price between $1,200 and $1,800, and a next-generation handheld a year before that. The same reporting describes a Game Pass overhaul built around pick-and-choose add-ons, more layoffs through the winter, and an internal schedule pulled forward by several months, with Microsoft possibly covering part of the retail cost itself.

God of War: Laufey pre-orders opened on September 29 for a PS5 exclusive dated February 16, 2027, built around Faye and a Serpent Bow that changes shape between firing modes. It ships in a Standard and a Digital Deluxe edition, and every pre-order carries the Last Wish Armor Set. The Forza Horizon 6 release on PS5 lands on January 26, with Premium Edition owners starting five days early on January 21 and the first expansion arriving that day on every platform. Playground’s racer has already passed $530 million in revenue and 7.4 million copies without a PlayStation version.

SQUAD reaches PS5 and Xbox Series X|S in 2027, and a free PS5 alpha ran from October 16 to October 25 for anyone who signed up. The console build targets 4K at 60 FPS on PS5 with dynamic resolution, holds 100 players in PvP, and needs PlayStation Plus like any other online game. Sony is separately taking pitches for games built on old franchises, with a ResetEra insider naming Killzone, Sly Cooper and Ape Escape as series external studios could revive under PlayStation Studios.

Away from hardware, Sony Pictures has moved to the front of the race for the Battlefield movie, with Christopher McQuarrie set to direct and write and Michael B. Jordan producing and possibly starring. Electronic Arts is reported to be consulting on it, and no release date exists yet. The Call of Duty film, set in the Modern Warfare universe, already has one for June 30, 2028.