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PlayStation 5 Gets Japan-Language-Only Digital Edition

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) announced on Wednesday that it will release a new model for the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition in Japan that will only have Japanese language support. The new model will launch in Japan on November 21, and will be cheaper than the multi-language Digital Edition model, at 55,000 yen (about US$355).

The current Digital Edition model for the PS5 sells at 72,980 yen (about US$471) in Japan.

As with the regular Digital Edition, the new version will not have a Blu-ray Disc drive, and can only play digitally downloaded games. This new Japanese-language-only model will only support Japan region PlayStation Network accounts, and will only display its menu in Japanese, with no other languages available.

SIE raised the price of some PS5 consoles in "select markets" in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand earlier this year in April. The price of the PS5 Pro in these regions has not changed. In August, SIE raised the price of the PS5 in the United States, with the mainline console going from US$499.99 to US$549.99, the PS5 Digital Edition from US$449.99 to US$499.99, and the PS5 Pro from US$699.99 to US$749.99.

SIE increased the suggested retail price of the PS5 console and its related peripherals in Japan in September 2024. The company cited severe external conditions, including recent changes in the global economic situation, as the reason for the price changes.

The company announced in August that it had shipped 80.3 million units of the PlayStation 5 console in its consolidated financial results for the fiscal year's first quarter that ended on June 30. The company shipped 2.5 million PlayStation 5 units between April 1-June 30.

The PS5 launched in the United States, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea on November 12, 2020. The console launched in most of the rest of the world on November 19, 2020. The PS5 retailed for US$499.99, and the PS5 Digital Edition (which does not include an optical disc drive) retailed for US$399.99. The PS5 got a new, smaller model intended to replace the old model throughout November to early December in 2023 in various territories.

The PlayStation 5 Pro console shipped in November 2024. The PS5 Pro features PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, 120 FPS, advanced ray tracing, 2TB of SSD storage, upgraded GPU with "28% faster memory," and AI-driven upscaling to improve image clarity.

Source: PlayStation Blog via Gematsu