Sony preps for $700-million tariff bill and possible PS5 price hike

Video games are an expensive hobby, and we're already seeing higher prices from Nintendo and Xbox. Now, we have bad news for PlayStation gamers.

In its latest earnings call, Sony CFO Lin Tao confirmed that the company is exploring raising prices as a result of the Trump administration's new tariffs. And while Tao didn't name the PS5 directly, the gaming division is Sony's most profitable, and the company just raised prices on PS5 hardware in several regions outside the U.S. a month ago. Sony already sells a variant of the PS5 for $700 in the U.S., so the company is no stranger to high prices for gaming hardware.

Just how big of a hit will Sony take because of tariffs? The company revealed in an earnings report that it's facing a $700 million impact from tariffs, according to Bloomberg. Fellow Japanese company Toyota is facing a $1.2-billion tariff bill.

However, the news isn't all bad for Sony. The company expects to sell 15 million PS5 consoles in the next year, almost exactly the same number of Switch 2 units that Nintendo forecasts it will sell in the same time.

While a potential price hike for the PS5 could be coming in the near future, the extremely fluid tariff situation also makes the situation very unpredictable.

As part of the earnings call, Sony CEO Hiroki Totoki also said the PS5 could theoretically be manufactured in the U.S. to circumvent tariffs, per The Verge. That's probably a lot easier said than done, though. Most PS5s are manufactured in China, which, at the time of publication, is currently subject to at least a 30 percent tariff.

Trump's tariffs have only been in effect for about a month, and the console gaming space is already reeling. Xbox games and consoles just got across-the-board price hikes for U.S. gamers, a very surprising move considering that we're five years into that console generation. Nintendo recently delayed preorders for its upcoming Switch 2 console in the U.S. for a couple of weeks, as Trump's tariffs were announced on the same day that Nintendo announced the $450 price point for the Switch 2. Nintendo eventually reopened preorders without changing the console's price, though some hardware accessories got price hikes.

Needless to say, these price increases probably won't end until the tariffs do.

UPDATE: May. 14, 2025, 3:23 p.m. EDT This article has been updated with additional information from Sony's earnings call.