When Sony announced that Horizon Forbidden West‘s PlayStation 5 version would cost $10 more than the PS4 version, backlash ensued because the company had initially promised that first-party games in PS5’s launch window would offer free upgrades, and Horizon Forbidden West was originally part of that lineup. Fans felt that the game’s delay wasn’t a good excuse to pull that offer, pushing Sony to backtrack on its decision. Turns out, majority of the UK players paid more to purchase Horizon Forbidden West on the PS5. According to data shared by Games Industry, 68 percent of the game’s physical copies sold in the UK were PS5 discs and 67 percent of its download sales were for the PS5 version.
Why Horizon Forbidden West PS5 is more popular in the UK
Let’s get the obvious reason out of the way first. A good proportion of the gaming population doesn’t necessarily keep up with all sorts of video game news and discourse happening on social media. There’s a high chance that they either didn’t know or didn’t care about the price difference. Secondly, as we’ve reported before, the way Sony advertised both versions of Horizon Forbidden West didn’t really make it clear that players had the option to buy the cheaper PS4 version (disc or digital) and claim the PS5 upgrade for free – something that irked one games industry lawyer, who claims that Sony can be sued for this “deceptive” tactic.
Opinion: Some players just don’t care about the price difference
Zarmena writes… I follow video game news for a living yet I forked out extra money for the physical PS5 version of Horizon Forbidden West, simply because I neither have the patience nor the time to faff about with 100 GB downloads just to save a little bit of money. A good chunk of the gaming population still has to deal with data caps and poor download speeds so it makes little sense to buy a disc only to pop it in and start a massive download. I can’t speak for those who bought the digital version, but if they accessed the PS Store from their next-gen hardware, they would have seen the PS5 version only. I can’t wait to see NPD data and find out what version U.S. players opted for.
In other news, FromSoftware is working on Elden Ring PS5 save data issue, and a new Gex trademark has been filed.
