It's not "surge", it's not "dynamic", it's not "personalized" pricing... It's price gouging. Look forward to paying more for games during peak times and months. It's never enough for these greedy giant corporations.
this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2026
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I might be part of the problem. I bought a PS5 years ago, thinking GTA6 was close to being released.
Turns out no.
But what I've discovered is that with how the gaming industry has gone, I don't see any need to buy games anymore.
I'm sick of games being an online focused experience, which requires subscription costs.
I'm sick of every game needing a multiple deluxe collectors editions that are the only way to play the full game, but cost $200 each and come with cheap plastic junk "collectables" to justify the cost.
"But you won't get the super rare coin and lapel pin if you don't get the collectors edition!"
"Thats fine. Just sell me the full game at $60."
"The full game requires the collectors edition. But it comes with this lapen pin and rare coin!"
"How many copies of the collectors edition are there?"
"About 2 million."
"So, not exactly rare, is it?"
It seems as though many people aren't reading the article, Sony was testing lower prices for the test groups, not higher. That sounds like the opposite of price gouging to me.
If you get the lower price only with the app etc. it’s a price increase for anyone without the app. When most of the users have the app and are locked in the prices get changed based on an algorithm and everybody pays more than before.
It's just a test. Doesn't mean they won't use it the other way.
Probably just seeing how much people notice and why.
Or maybe they're testing how many more sales they make when discounting more.
the PS4 can be jailbroken with a €4 disc from aliexpress nowadays, and it has a great catalog of games. slap a 1tb external hdd on it, download games from archive.org, presto
Why disc? Been few years since I used my PS4, but I remember jailbreaking it as long as you are on the correct firmware was as simple as caching a website offline and bookmarking it to run the exploit whenever you turned on the PS4.
Intriguing....
this will do the trick, scroll down to the product recommendations and you might find an even cheaper listing
Wait, you can get jailbreak discs from aliexpress? That might be worth looking into...
(although, how do we know if it's got malware on it?)
you can also burn it yourself if you have a bluray burner, the software the aliexpress discs use is freely available (search for "goldhen")
Oooh awesome. I figured normal burned discs wouldn't work.
We don't have a bluray burner (only a CD/DVD drive) but have been kinda wanting to get one.
Shoot, apparently it's not open source. That's not confidence-inspiring... but then again PS3 CFWs weren't either (*sighs*)
Does that apply to PS4s running 11.something? I can't remember what OS version our PS4 is on, but it's new enough that a jailbreak only came out pretty recently. Needed a specific game disc to work.
it works up to firmware 12.52, if you haven't updated for a couple of months it should be fine
Oooh lovely!! We're uh, pre-12.5 I think.
A DVD won't work, right, it's gotta be a bluray? Because if we can do this with a DVD-R and not need another reader, that'd be great.
Then I will continue my 20 year Sony boycott.
What was it that initially sent you down that path?
Not the person you asked, but for me:
- The music CD rootkit
- removing OtherOS from the PlayStation 3
- trying to push various proprietary formats like MemoryStick and MiniDisc
- DRM in ATRAC3
- etc.
Take your pick!
Trying to only establish proprietary media in the past, mostly ignoring open standards.
Oops I didn't fully read, you got it ♥️
Omg their stupid ass 4x normal price proprietary memory sticks lmao
Ugh God. I remember that "Magic Gate" bullshit when the PSP launched. They started a trend with the Walkman and they're trying to get lightning to strike twice. Never could do it though. Good.
Those greedy assholes need to engineer and innovate in other areas.
Steam and PC gaming if anything. That and changing life priorities in my 30s and 40s. GoG and epic too. Between them I have almost 1000 games I didn't pay for. Combined with hundreds on steam from humble etc. I probably spend more time trying to decide what to play than playing it.
Valve is also the only company out of these big gaming companies who do lot of Open Source (working on it and funding other projects) and care about Linux. It maybe coincidental, but these care and goals align with my personal interests. No other company in the gaming industry does that to this extend, plus its an open platform. And being a private company brings also lot of freedom to not listen to shareholders.
The only thing is, that Steam itself is not Open Source... and the uncertainty what will happen if one day Gabe will no longer control...
Don't buy anything from Sony, got it
The dynamic pricing will not affect my static boycott.
I wonder why steam is so successful
Doesn’t valve also do this for different regions?
It's almost as though Valve provides a valuable service and respects their customers. Rare traits in the corporate world. Answering to a board of directors is a hell of a lot easier than answering to shareholders.
Enshitification hasn't struck there....yet.
I'm sure not being able to trust the price does wonders to sales.
Anyone dealing with Sony in anyway absolutely deserves everthing they get. Fuck Sony ten ways to forever.
Being transparent about stable prices without shady experiments is the first step of trust. Years ago Steam got rid of dynamic prices during sales, where prices during sales for games would change. While not exactly the same thing as Sony does, its still good we got stable and reliable prices.
This should have been an obvious outcome when digital games weren’t priced any less than their physical release.
It’s not about saving the environment with less plastic. It’s not about saving money for the customer. It’s not about making it more convenient for the customer or the developer.
It was always about more greed. More money in their pockets and more ways to fuck you over as a customer.
I dont understand what they are trying to do, but i dont like it. Bring back physical copies god damnit