Fellow Canadians, weep with me.

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/03/14/playstation-4-prices-going-up-in-canada

This is quite unfortunate and is definitely going to halt my intention of obtaining one in the near future.

Any other Canadian Bombers bummed out by this, I almost cried a little on the inside. Major disappointment.

Definitely puts a punch in the gut for my choice to buy a PS4. Was wondering whether to buy the PS4 this upcoming holiday or build my own PC, and this price increase swings me more towards a PC.

My question is..why? >.>

So if the Canadian Dollar becomes stronger will we see another price cut? I doubt it. When the Canadian Dollar was stronger than the U.S Dollar we didn't have any savings passed onto us then. This has got to be a permanent move by Sony, and I have little doubt that this will eventually transfer over to the States as well.

From what I've heard today, people are speculating that it's because of the falling Canadian dollar. It's estimated to fall even further over the next year vs the USD, Euro, Pound, and Yen. So, since Sony is already cutting it pretty close on the cost of the PS4, they may feel this is necessary to keep it profitable in Canada.

Though, I'm surprised they jumped $50. That's pretty rough.

rude

@krullban: The IGN article suggests it's due to the scarcity of the PS4 in Canada.

I'm pretty bummed about the news, I was waiting for a price drop and was not expecting this... I guess I'll be sticking with my Wii U and PC for the long term. I've been building up my store credit at EB games, maybe I'll cash that in for Steam bucks.

I've been looking for weeks and it's always sold out. With the $50 increase I think I won't even bother now.

I have noticed some preorders for games on Amazon.ca have increased by $10. Our dollar is dropping and for most people that sucks.

Thus began the end of the goodwill towards Sony.

PS4's are impossible to come by now anyway so I won't worry to much for now but it still sucks hard. Gaming in Canada is becoming way too expensive.

lol, cocky a-hole Sony is coming back. It's like a seesaw affect between them and MS on who's being a prick and who's making deals.

Was to be expected, upcoming games went up in price a while ago. 450$ here is a bit higher than it is in the US at 400$ (only 8$ more though) and with the dollar on a downward trend for the coming months it will even things out pretty soon. No reasons to be outraged.

It's not like the Canadian dollar will jump back up to parity in a week either.

It has nothing to do with being cocky man. Sony is already selling these things at a loss. If the exchange rate is going to further fuck them on their return per system then really the only option is to do exactly this. You can only eat so much loss per unit before it quits becoming a viable price point. Do you think they would readily give up the selling point of being a $100 cheaper console vs the Xbox One? That is silly that you think this is about greed.

Isn't this increase about on parity with the devaluation the CAD has seen over the last year or so?

@mb: It went from being well over the US Dollar (upwards of somewhere around $1.10 a year or two ago) to dropping to around $0.87 (and dropping) the last week or so before leveling out around $0.90. I could see a small price raise, but this might be a bit much.

It really sucks. I used to order tons of stuff from the US, but this sudden 10%+ premium is making it not even close to worth it anymore. Of course the business types tout this as amazing for the Canadian economy because US companies will buy more from Canada now, but for the average consumer it really sucks, especially when combined with rising food prices. Some types of meats are speculated to go up in price here big time.

Of course, in line with this Sony announcement, a lot of companies will take this opportunity to crank up prices and then not bring them back in line when our currencies equalize again. They did that last time.

I don't think I've ever heard of this happening before. At the end of the day 50 dollars isn't a huge amount, but it still feels pretty slimy. They set the $400 price and now they're changing it. This is their own fault but they've decided Canadians need to pay the price for it.

Come at an interesting time for me as I have a pre-order in on Amazon for one (like many people have stated they are impossible to find in Canada, and in Nova Scotia they're barely more than a rumour), but I'm probably going to cancel it because I don't think I'd even use it until later this year.

I don't think a $50 increase is a dealbreaker, especially when the Xbox One is still $50 more. It's still cheaper than buying and maintaining a gaming PC.

Bummer. That's a pretty substantial increase.

We did get savings passed on to us. We used to pay more for games than Americans did.

To pull out some numbers, the Canadian Dollar right now is worth about .90 cents compared to the US Dollar. So a PS4 that's $400 in The States already translates into $443.92 Canadian. It's a shitty problem for all involved, but I can understand the unavoidable necessity of not selling a console at that huge of a loss in such a big country.

That, or Sony's getting it's marketing advice from Jason Rohrer.

@joshwent: And most economists predict the CAD dollar fall to about 0.85. People forget the 360 and PS3 were $100 more at launch in Canada and new games were $70. We had a great break the last 5 years but as the economies are getting back to pre 2008 crash levels Canadians will go back to paying more.

Come to the US to buy one you guys!

You know I am pretty liberal, i usually vote liberal or Ndp... but with this price increase I think I might go...PC

Seriously though, I wanted to get a ps4 eventually but I feel like I could build an economic gaming pc that would satisfy me better somewhere around that price. I will revisit getting a ps4 when some of my favourite current/past exclusives start coming out. If I was to buy anything right now it would be 3ds>pc>ps4>wiiu>xbone.

I wonder if the Xbox One will then go up as well in Canada.

@thehbk said:

As @joshwent pointed out, at the current dollar values we would be paying basically $450 Canadian anyway. Comparing the value of the dollars, Canadians are now paying $405 American (at the current CAD value) for a PS4 instead of about $372 American (given an average of 0.93 CAD to USA that it was during the holiday) we were paying before the price jump. If the CAD falls to 0.85, as expected, Canadians will be paying $382.50 American for a PS4. So Americans should be coming to Canada to buy a PS4 and not the other way round pretty soon.

This is one of the few instances where early adopters are rewarded. So yay us early adopters... I guess?

MS can afford to lose money where Sony can not. Also, I believe the great white north was a Sony stronghold last generation, as shown by them hiring the great Canadian Adam Boyes.

Is Sony actually doing it or retailers BECAUSE they could squeeze out more money from consumers? Either or it sucks

As a company as a whole, Microsoft probably could. As a business unit, they might not want the Xbox division back in the red if they end up selling at a (bigger) loss. There are plenty of publicly traded companies that are profitable that make changes when a business unit doesn't meet expectations - not talking about number of sales.

It probably is. I actually have to watch the Canadian currency for my job, and I've had to raise red flags that what was on parity for quite a long time is now $1.1CAD to $1USD. (For a long time it was even and for a small period of time, the Canadian dollar was actually stronger than the US dollar.) About a 10% change in currency, about a 10% price increase on the PS4.

Oanda.com is a good place to get historical currency prices as well as current prices. If you pull the year back, you'll see that the Canadian dollar has weakened significantly recently. :(

@daroki: Indeed, and Canada has already seen this effect in the pricing of games across multiple consoles. Unfortunately, I anticipate that in the coming months, both the Xbox One and Wii U will have their prices go up. Or, if they were planning on a price cut, Canada won't see it.

It really sucks for gamers, but as you're probably well aware for your job, the CAD is anticipated to go down even further before it rebounds. Gonna be a tough year.

Xbox One Titanfall Bundle is theoretically "cheaper" in Canada now

Oh well. Just another reason not to buy the new consoles. Shame to see the industry regressing back to the bad old days when games in Canada cost $10-$15 more. Thankfully I'm a PC guy and with sites like greenmangaming I won't have to worry too much about that. They always have games on the cheap.

Why would the prices go up due to scarcity and poor supply? Retailer pressure on Sony?

Actually we kind of did. Consoles were usually $50-100 more in Canada than the US. The recent console releases were the first time they were ever at par, so even with a $50 increase, it's still better than it has been in the past. And for a while in 2009, our weak dollar prompted a lot of publishers to bump up game prices to $70. When the dollar became stronger, those prices came back down. We've already seen that happen again with some new game prices coming in at $65.

That's true but the Canadian market is small enough that I would think that they are willing to take a hit up here and hope to gain some ground and good will.

perfect understanding of economics right here...

Based on the current exchange rate of the Canadian and US dollars, the console costs are about fifty US cents removed from each other.

Remember folks that Sony Canada is doing this not Sony America.

Also most candian companies did not give a shit about lowering prices when the dollar started going to parity.

Wait a second TruthTellah.. are you tellah me that Sony is a corporation that is seeking profits in return for a product, and not in fact my friend that wants to like totally make sure I have the best gaming experience ever? My.. my world..

Dude... dude... Ya know what?

Sony even has shareholders they have to appease, and most things you like about them are likely planned moves to get more money out of you and others to increase their profits. It's almost like they're a business or something.

Shareholders?! I thought only vile, greedy, corporations such as Microsoft are beholden to those profit hounds! Jack Tretton went onstage and told me, this is for the gamers, they even let me play used games. I simply cannot believe that Sony would raise the price on a console in order to adjust for economic currency shifts, instead of taking a loss for the sake of the gamers.

That sucks. I'm sorry Canadian Duders.

Selfish question, if the Canadian dollar sucks, does that mean its a good time for me to vacation in Canada?

Well, if you're talking vacation I'd at least wait until the snow melts.

Yes, actually. It's a better time than ever to visit Canada. The tourist industry is certainly seeing hope in this, and with good reason.

There aren't really plans to fully undo this change in the valuation, because the Canadian Dollar has been considered a bit too high for a while now. Now it's settling into a more level 0.85-0.90 to the USD, and it will likely stay that way for some time. Which should mean your money will go further in Canada! So, while things like price increases of imported products(such as consoles) stink, there are some upsides such as that. You should definitely consider vacationing Canada.

I'm completely irritated by this, because I don't like having to spend more money than I have to, and the worst part is the 69.00 price tag for Sony's first party games.

That being said, historically, we've always paid a mark-up for a number of things, exchange rate notwithstanding. A great example is Halls Cough Drops, made in Canada, and sold all over North America, and almost always more expensive by 10-20% at Canadian retailers. This was often the case with TVs, and often times, even with duty, taxes, and exchange rate, it was cheaper to buy a lot of things in the U.S. and bring them across the border yourself. This isn't the case with the Playstation, instead it just means I'll be buying more used games, 'cause, hey, Sony doesn't have a problem with those.

I think the best thing for Canadian PS4 owners to do with big, single player, first party releases, is wait a few months and buy them then. After all, Killzone: Shadowfall is already 39 CDN.

So I bought a ps4 50$ off at launch? Yeah me! And they said waiting for a price cut was the smart move

Still a good $150 cheaper than it is here :/

@pr1mus: supposedly the price has gone up according to the internet but I haven't seen it in person. All the stores here are still proceed regularly.