Sony is Seemingly Testing Dynamic Pricing for First-Party Games on PlayStation Store

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Sony is experimenting with a new pricing system for games on the PlayStation Store. Reports suggest that prices are changing based on individual customers, with discounts varying. It looks like Sony is considering several things when determining how much of a discount to offer.

For example, one player saw a 70% discount on Stellar Blade, reducing the price to $20.99. Another player received a smaller discount of 43%, bringing the price down to $39.89.

We don’t yet know exactly how discount rates are determined, but the report suggests account age could be a factor. Other possibilities include how often someone plays and when they last logged in.

Currently, these discounts are only appearing on games made specifically for the PlayStation 5. This suggests Sony is initially trying out this new system with its own games to see how it performs before expanding it further. It’s also unclear how much say third-party game publishers will have in determining discounts, as Sony hasn’t clearly explained its rules.

As a PlayStation fan, I know Sony often tweaks the PlayStation Store, but something big like changing prices on the fly would definitely be a huge deal, and they’d announce it, right? The biggest change I’ve seen so far was when they revamped PlayStation Plus into the tiered system we have now, and even that came with a proper announcement. It just feels like they’d let us know about anything that dramatically alters how we buy games.

PlayStation Plus used to just let you play games online and offered a few free games each month. But in 2022, PlayStation introduced three different subscription levels. The basic ‘Essential’ tier still includes online access and monthly games. If you upgrade to ‘Extra’ or ‘Premium,’ you get even more benefits, like a larger library of games and access to older titles from the original PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and PSP.

In August 2025, PlayStation Store received an update that simplified the refund process. To get a refund, you need to have purchased the game within the last two weeks, and it can’t have been downloaded. You can also get refunds for things you buy within games, like in-game currency, as long as you haven’t played the game since making that purchase.

Mark Cerny, the lead architect of the PS5 and PS5 Pro, has revealed that Sony is collaborating with AMD to bring AMD’s FSR Frame Generation technology to PlayStation consoles. Although it won’t be available this year, Cerny highlighted the advancements made to FSR, specifically a new version called FSR Redstone, and how it has also enhanced the quality of PSSR upscaling.

To explain the partnership with AMD, the new PlayStation Scaler (PSSR) uses the same core technology as FSR Redstone’s upscaling – I’ll be using the new names, PSSR and FSR, to avoid confusion. FSR Frame Generation is also built on technology we developed together with AMD – as Jack Huynh, a colleague at AMD, calls it, ‘co-engineered technology.’ I’m pleased with our progress, and we expect to see a similar frame generation library on PlayStation in the future.

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2026-03-26 18:11