Sony is testing dynamic pricing on the PlayStation Store
Users in certain regions are being offered personalised discounts of up to 17%
Sony is testing dynamic pricing on PS5’s PlayStation Store.
That’s according to PS Store price tracker, PSprices, which has detected the price changes across more than 100 games, with users being offered personalised discounts of up to 17.6%.
Dynamic pricing, also known as surge pricing, is a pricing strategy that sees businesses set flexible prices for products based on demand or a customer’s unique purchase history. The use of dynamic pricing has been criticized by some consumers in other industries for its perceived unfairness.
According to the tracker, some PlayStation Store users have been seeing personalised prices significantly lower than the standard price, as part of a Sony A/B test to study demand elasticity. Users are randomly placed in control or test groups and see different prices for the same games, it says.
Price differences seen by users currently range from discounts of 5% and 17.6%, including first-party games like God of War Ragnarök, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Helldivers 2, Stellar Blade, Gran Turismo 7, and The Last of Us Part II.
Third-party games from publishers including 2K Games, Focus Entertainment, Deep Silver, Bethesda, and Rockstar are also said to be part of the testing.
Sony has been A/B testing prices for at least three months in 30 different regions, according to PSprices, and is now doing so in nearly 70 regions, including Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Africa.
The US and Japan are not included, likely due to stricter regulations, it’s claimed.
In its latest earnings results, Sony raised its gaming sales (4%) and operating income (2%) forecasts for the fiscal year, which ends on April 1. Sony’s overall group profit is up 22% year-on-year.
The company said PlayStation Plus revenue “significantly contributed” to the results of the quarter, as the shift to higher tiers of the service continued. PlayStation’s Monthly Active Users in December reached a record 132 million accounts, and total gameplay hours increased year-on-year.
