Sony takes aim at Steam with dynamic discounts on the PlayStation Store — new report claims over 150 games in 50+ regions are showing varying lower prices for some users

One of the upsides of playing on PC is the sheer variety of sales and discounts you can accumulate across different marketplaces. In contrast, a console — like the PS5, is locked down to just the first-party PS Store, which doesn't operate as generously. However, it seems that Sony might be shifting gears on this avenue as a new report from PSprices claims that the company is now experimenting with dynamic pricing, or more specifically, dynamic discounts.

According to the outlet, Sony has been running A/B testing on the PlayStation Store for more than three months. The test reportedly started with 50 games in 30 regions and has expanded to 150 titles across 68 regions now, including Sony's own first-party games. Certain users have been seeing lower prices for these games in the PS Store, varying from a 10% discount to all the way up to a 17.6% discount.

During sales where everyone can enjoy price cuts, some players were targeted with even more aggressive discounts; Helldivers 2 was off 25%, but for users participating in the A/B testing, they saw up to a 56% reduction in prices. Games like The Last of Us, God of War, and Gran Turismo 7, all important PlayStation exclusives, along with third-party titles like Rockstar's RDR2, were part of this testing.

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During routine tracking, PSprice discovered what it calls 'unusual offer structures' with never-before-seen identifiers like "IPT_PILOT," "IPT_OPR_TESING" in the PlayStation API. That led them to discover certain listings were dynamically altered. Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Africa are all participating regions where users are seeing personalized discounts, while America and Japan are notably omitted.

To be clear, if the experiment is limited to just discounts, then it's technically not dynamic pricing because, by definition, that involves price hikes as well. Think of concert tickets and how they become more expensive when demand is high. That predatory tactic is why dynamic pricing is very controversial amongst customers, but if Sony is just offering discounts to incentivize sales, that's different.

Steam has regional pricing for developing or third-world countries with weaker currencies. A $60 game might sell for half of that in Pakistan or Brazil, and even upcoming releases on pre-order will be discounted to ensure gamers in those regions can afford them. Sony's A/B testing looks more similar to this, especially because the United States is not part of the experiment.

Sony fortifying its home base by offering more and more PC-like features doesn't come as a surprise when the company is widely reported to be shifting back to a console-first strategy. New first-party exclusives are likely not coming to PC anymore, and with the next-gen Xbox running Steam to offer better, more personalized sales anyway, it's only sensible that the Japanese giant gets in on the action, too.

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