Sony testing PlayStation Store pricing change that could cost some gamers more

It looks like Sony is experimenting with a new dynamic pricing system on the PlayStation Store that could see some players pay more for their games than others.

As reported by PSPrices, the gaming company seems to be running A/B price testing with certain portions of its user base. This involves showing higher percentage discounts to some players placed in random testing groups.

It's thought that this experiment has been in place for the last four months in over 70 regions, including Europe. It appears that the US joined the A/B testing experiment in March 2026.

The dynamic pricing strategy means that some gamers are shown different prices compared to other PlayStation users with discounts increasing by up to 27.8% in some cases. Discounts appear higher in the US with Europe sitting between 10-17% on average.

For the most part, these discounts are being applied to Sony's first-party published titles, such as Helldivers 2, The Last of Us Part 1, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and God of War Ragnarok.

However, there are some third-party games also participating in the dynamic pricing test. For example, WWE 2K25 saw a 17.6% discount in one scenario, while Red Dead Redemption 2 was reduced by 10% compared to its control price.

While most of the dynamic pricing experiment appears to only make games cheaper for some users, a new program discovered in the PlayStation Store backend does actually increase the price of a game in rare scenarios. PSPrices reports that Grand Theft Auto V saw a jump from $26.99 to $29.99 for some gamers in the US.

Dynamic pricing has most notably popped up in the sale of gig tickets with Ticketmaster previously under fire for using the system to dramatically inflate ticket costs depending on demand. Recently passed legislation in the UK now prevents tickets from being resold for anything above retail value.

There currently doesn't seem to be any correlation between the types of games played and the discounts served to gamers. It's thought that those who play a large amount of action games could see similar titles discounted more heavily for their account - or more expensive.

Sony hasn't officially commented on this new pricing strategy yet, nor is it clear whether the experiment will become a permanent fixture of the PlayStation Store.

The news follows reports earlier this month that Sony will be moving away from publishing its games on PC. It's thought that the likes of Ghost of Yotei, Saros, and Marvel's Wolverine won't ever see the light of day on platforms like Steam.

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