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PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan defends Demon's Souls $70 price, claims higher price rumors are false

In a recent interview, Jim Ryan claimed Demon's Souls' higher price is fair, but also that rumors of discussion at PlayStation on higher priced PS5 games were 'categorically false.'

TJ Denzer

November 17, 2020 10:02 AM

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As the next generation of home gaming consoles has launched, so too has the conversation about game pricing and whether or not we’ll see price tags go up on premium games as we get into a new era of tech. Demon’s Souls stoked that conversation with a launch price of $69.99 on PS5, and it raises concerns of even higher pricing later. PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan recently addressed the matter, and while he defended the higher price of Demon’s Souls, he also claimed that reports of conversation at PlayStation about raising prices further were false.

Jim Ryan’s address of the PS5 game pricing conversation came up in a recent interview over on The Telegraph. In said interview, Ryan spoke to the starting price of Demon’s Souls in its standard edition, and answered to whether he thought the pricing was fair.

“I do,” Ryan answered. “If you measure the hours of entertainment provided by a video game, such as Demon’s Souls compared to any other form of entertainment, I think that's a very straightforward comparison to draw.”

When asked whether or not a recent Bloomberg report claiming PlayStation was considering hiking prices further on games in the future, Ryan was a bit more cautious, but claimed the report was not accurate.

“I can say that that report that we were considering higher prices for first party games is categorically false,” Ryan explained. “I'm not making any predictions about anything that might or might not happen in the future. I'm saying that the reports about discussions that we considered higher pricing for first party games in this launch window were categorically false.”

Certainly, Ryan or PlayStation necessarily determine the mood across the board of game publishers. NBA 2K21 (besides adding unskippable ads to the game), was one of the first games to appear with a price hike on next-gen. With Demon’s Souls, $70 is looking like the standard for now, and if Jim Ryan is to be believed, it should be for a while.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.