Rising from 399 to 599, your PS5 is paying taxes to AI and war.

By David, Deep Tide TechFlow

On March 27, Sony announced a price increase across the entire PS5 lineup, effective April 2.

In the U.S. market, the PS5 disc version rose from $549 to $649, the digital version rose from $499 to $599, and the PS5 Pro jumped directly from $749 to $899.

This is the second time within a year. The last time was in August last year: the U.S. only increased by $50, and Sony also deliberately protected this largest market. This time, it starts at $100—PS5 Pro rose by $150—and it’s happening globally, with no market exempted.

The pressure from the price hikes has already become so great that Sony is unwilling to absorb the costs itself.

Gamers all know there’s an iron law in the console industry: consoles only get cheaper as time goes on. Parts costs decline over time, and manufacturers recoup their upfront R&D costs through later-stage profits.

PS5 is the first console in history to break this rule. Released in 2020 at $399 for the digital edition. Six years later, the same machine is $599.

Sony’s official explanation is just six words: “global economic pressure.”

AI tax

Sony didn’t provide much more explanation. But multiple analysis organizations point to the same thing: memory chips.

PS5 includes memory and a custom SSD, and both require DRAM and NAND flash chips. Starting in mid-2025, both of these have begun to rise sharply in price. The reason has nothing to do with the gaming industry: global AI data center construction has taken away memory production capacity, squeezing the share left for consumer electronics.

The memory in your game console and the memory used for AI come from the same production line. AI can pay higher prices—you can’t.

Piers Harding-Rolls, research director at the game research firm Ampere Analysis, told CNBC that Sony likely previously signed price-guarantee agreements with suppliers to lock in procurement costs for a period of time. But after the agreement expired and there was no sign that memory prices would ease, Sony had no choice but to pass the costs on to consumers.

According to Fox Business, during Sony’s earnings call in February, the company also admitted it is dealing with the pressure of rising memory costs and plans to offset hardware-side losses through revenue from software and network services.

Here’s the translation for Sony: hardware is no longer profitable—it’s even losing money. Sony plans to make up for it by selling games and memberships.

This is the first cut. The extra money you pay isn’t because the console got better—it’s because AI has taken your memory.

Missile strikes, aluminum prices rise

Memory price hikes are already painful enough. Then the missiles came.

On March 28—one day after Sony’s price-hike announcement—Iran’s Revolutionary Guard launched several missiles at both the UAE and Bahrain. The targets weren’t military bases; they were aluminum plants.

EGA, the Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), is the Middle East’s largest aluminum producer. According to its website, for every 25 tons of aluminum produced globally, 1 ton comes out of this plant. Bahrain Aluminium (Alba) has annual capacity of 1.62 million tons. Together, the two account for 6% of global aluminum production capacity.

According to EGA’s website, the company’s products are sold in more than 60 countries and to over 400 customers across all kinds of industries.

A few hours after the missiles landed, aluminum prices jumped on the London Metal Exchange. As reported by The Securities Times, the overseas aluminum spot premium surged to the highest level in 19 years. Bahrain Aluminium then immediately announced force majeure and paused deliveries to some customers.

Citi analyst predictions: if supply continues to worsen, aluminum prices could rise from the current roughly $3,300 to $4,000 per ton.

PS5’s cooling module, metal body components, and electromagnetic shielding layers all require aluminum alloy. Memory has already taken one hit, and aluminum is taking another.

And the bombing of these two aluminum plants wasn’t a coincidence.

In its statement, the Revolutionary Guard said that these two factories are “related to U.S. military and aerospace industries.” In May last year, U.S. aerospace and defense giant RTX, which makes Patriot missiles and F-35 radar systems, had just signed a memorandum of cooperation with Emirates Global Aluminium to develop a production line for extracting gallium—the core material for military radar—at its factory located in Abu Dhabi.

At the signing ceremony, Paolo Dal Cin, senior vice president of operations and the supply chain at RTX, said in the company’s official press release that the agreement is intended to ensure the supply of critical minerals for the aerospace and defense industries.

What Iran is targeting is the U.S. military-industrial supply chain.

But if you bomb a military base, the bill is paid by one country’s Ministry of Defense. If you bomb an aluminum plant, the bill gets shared by the whole world—from airplanes to cars to phones to your PS5.

The Revolutionary Guard’s statement also includes another line: future retaliation will no longer be limited to symmetrical military responses, but will deliver a “more lethal strike” against the enemy’s economic system.

As reported by Sina Finance, last month Saudi Arabia’s largest chemical company SABIC already announced that its styrene and methanol production has encountered force majeure.

From aluminum to chemical raw materials, “force majeure” is spreading across the Middle East.

Paying for the world’s change

Of the PS5’s $200 increase, there’s actually a third cut hidden inside it—though that cut was already made last year.

In August 2025, Sony raised prices in the U.S. for the first time by $50. The backdrop then was that the U.S. imposed additional tariffs on global trade partners, raising the import costs of electronic products. The PS5 is designed in Japan, and parts are produced and assembled in multiple countries across Asia—every step got shaved by tariffs.

Tariffs, AI stealing production capacity, and missiles bombing aluminum plants.

Three bills, three completely different sources. One comes from Washington, one from Silicon Valley, and one from the Middle East. From $399 to $599—only that each price increase wasn’t because the console itself got better.

You just wanted to buy a game console. But on your price tag, a slice gets allocated to the U.S. trade policy, a slice to the arms race of AI companies, and a slice to the war in the Middle East.

And PS5 may be the most honest of them all.

Sony issued an announcement and explicitly told you how much it’s going up. But aluminum isn’t used only for game consoles, and memory isn’t used only in PS5. Your phone, your laptop, and the electric scooter you ride—all use the same aluminum and the same chips.

In the traditional sense, where does war money come from? The government levies taxes, or prints money. During World War II, the U.S. issued war bonds; during the Korean War, Truman raised taxes. You know you’re paying—you know where the money went.

When these products quietly rise in price next time, there may not be anyone issuing announcements.

In 2020, you spend $399 to buy a PS5—you’re paying for a game console. In 2026, you spend $599 to buy the same PS5; the extra $200 isn’t payment for better performance.

In the end, we all have to pay for what happened in this world over the past six years.