Why PlayStation Store prices differ from person to person
Published September 2026.
What is publicly known
Since November 2025 there have been consistent reports that Sony is testing different prices for different accounts on the PlayStation Store: two people open the same game's page, in the same region, and see different values.
Reporting from March 2026 described the test as covering more than 190 games and dozens of regions. Sony has not publicly confirmed the test or its criteria.
What we don't know
- How accounts are selected.
- Whether the effect is a discount for some or an increase for others — or both.
- Whether any specific person is in a test. We cannot claim that about anyone.
What we measure
We collect the public, signed-out price of 50 games, every hour, from the Brazil and United States stores, since September 18, 2026. That is the price the store shows to anyone who is not identified — our baseline.
What reports show so far
There are not enough reports to publish numbers yet. We started receiving them in September 2026, and each group only appears here once it has at least 5 reports — below that, one report could identify a person and would say nothing about the group.
If you want to help: compare your price. It takes two seconds and works even when your price matches the public one — a confirmation matters as much as a difference.
Why this is hard to notice on your own
Store prices change because of sales, region and subscriptions. Without a baseline to compare against, any price looks like the public one.
That is why a single person cannot tell whether they are seeing the price everyone sees.
What to do
Type the value shown on your screen: we compare it with the most recent public collection of the same item, in the same store, and tell you whether your price is aligned, below or above it.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this legal?
- We cannot answer that. Per-account price testing is not new in digital commerce, and its legality depends on each country's law and on how the test is run. What we can do — and do — is measure the public price and show the difference when it appears.
- How do I know if I'm in a test?
- There is no way to know for sure. What you can do is compare the price you see with the public price collected without sign-in: if they differ, something specific to your account is at play — which may be a test, a targeted promotion, or another mechanism we cannot see.
- Should I create another account to compare?
- We don't recommend it. We don't know the selection criteria, so a new account may fall into the same group — and creating accounts to obtain different prices may violate the store's terms.
- Is the different price always higher?
- We don't know. Public reports describe differences in both directions, and our data only covers the public price, not what each account sees.
- Do you have access to internal Sony data?
- No. Everything we publish comes from automated collection of the stores' public pages, without sign-in, and from voluntary reports by people who use the site.