The recently announced PS5 remaster of Horizon Zero Dawn arrives next month. And if you already own the OG version on PS4, you can upgrade for just $10. However, if you were thinking about buying the old PS4 version now so you can pay the small upgrade fee and save some money on that remaster, well, you waited too long, because Sony has doubled the price on the original game to stop anyone from doing that.
On September 24 during the latest State of Play, Sony officially announced Horizon: Zero Dawn Remastered, confirming rumors and an earlier ESRB leak. This new remastered version of the 2017 post-apocalyptic open-world game features newly recorded dialogue and a ton of visual enhancements. It arrives October 31 for PS5 and PC and will cost $50. Meanwhile, the original game previously only cost $20 on the PSN store. But that price has doubled now as Sony makes sure you can’t save any money by purchasing the old version and using the cheaper upgrade path.
As spotted by Eurogamer, Sony has quietly doubled the price for the digital version of Horizon Zero Dawn on PS4. The 2017 game previously only cost $20, but now costs $40. It seems the price was increased on September 25.
Doing some math, that means if you buy the PS4 version today, and then spend the $10 to upgrade, you’ll have spent $5o. So you won’t save any money doing this. Now, Sony hasn’t officially come out and said, “Oh yeah, we doubled the price on the PS4 version of Horizon so you can’t save $10.” But it’s pretty obvious what’s happening here and it’s honestly a bit silly.
If people want to jump through the hoops of buying it on PS4 first and then upgrading to the PS5 version to save $10, who cares? You’re still making money. Or lower the price of the remaster to $30, so people don’t save money but you don’t screw folks who want to buy and play a seven-year-old game on their PS4.
Luckily, you can still find cheap used physical copies of Horizon Zero Dawn, and Sony has confirmed that if you own it on disc you can still upgrade for just $10. You’ll need to keep the disc in the PS5 (and, obviously, have a disc drive) but that’s still an option. And I don’t think Sony is going to go around with a sledgehammer smashing up every copy of Horizon Zero Dawn hanging out in GameStops around the country. At least, I’m pretty sure they won’t do that…
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