Amazon Leaks PlayStation 5 Price And Release Date

The PS5 (or PlayStation 5) is the next-generation PlayStation console, with a release date confirmed for late 2020. During Sony’s The Future of Gaming event on June 11, we finally got our first look at the PS5’s design and the PS5 games line-up, which includes the likes of Horizon Forbidden West and a remake of Demon’s Souls. Now thanks to Amazon France who briefly listed the PlayStation 5’s price and release date before taking that information out of the listing.

This comes via Ben Geskin on Twitter, who stumbled on the listing prior to Amazon scrubbing it. He took screenshots, however, and those aren’t going anywhere. Geskin, a content creator and concept designer with over 100,000 Twitter followers, tweeted this screenshot:

The listing has since been removed, and it’s entirely possible that the information isn’t accurate—as with all leaks, take this one with a grain of salt. But it is interesting and not at all unbelievable. Amazon France lists the release date for the PS5 as November 20th, 2020—right smack-dab in the middle of Holiday shopping season, and one week before Black Friday. I wouldn’t expect any crazy Black Friday deals on brand new video game consoles but there may be some bundles and certainly current-gen systems will be cheaper than ever.

The Amazon France listing has prices for both the PS5 and PS5 Digital Only editions. The PS5 is listed at €499 and the Digital Edition clocks in at €399. This converts to approximately $565 USD and $450 USD respectively (£447/£358 in the UK).

That’s quite expensive, and certainly more than I expected Sony to sell the new machine. Then again, around $450 for the Digital Edition seems reasonable and honestly that seems like the way to go. I almost never watch Blu-Rays these days given that most of my TV and movie watching is via streaming services. Same with games. I rarely pop a disc into any of my consoles.

I do have a lot of older games on discs, and I suppose that’s something to consider with backward compatibility, but the vast majority of games I’ve gotten in the past three or four years have been digital. I also think the Digital Edition looks better than the oddly bulging regular PS5 which, let’s face it, has a beer belly. It’s too young to have a beer belly, but there it is.

I’ll be very curious to see if these prices are the real deal or just placeholders. The date seems about right, but I still think that anything over $500 is crazy. My prediction has been the standard PS5 at $499 USD and the Digital at $399. Then again, these must be expensive to make given the fancy SSD.

If the PS5 costs $499/$399, Microsoft could either undercut the PS5 by launching the Xbox Series X at $399 or $449, or match at $499. The Xbox Series S (which is still not official) could release for $399 or even less. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an all-digital Series S as well at $299, though maybe Microsoft will simply release a disc-less Series X instead of a lower-powered machine. Who knows? We’re still waiting for official pricing from both Sony as they play an extended game of chicken. If the standard PS5 costs $565 (or, more likely, $549) Microsoft will be able to undercut Sony with ease.

What do you think—do these prices seem realistic to you? What’s your best guess? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.