70% of players paid more than needed for Horizon Forbidden West

While Horizon Forbidden West has had a relatively controversial-free launch, the game’s price prior to release was a point of protest for some. Despite the fact that Horizon Forbidden West offers a free PS5 upgrade, most customers paid extra for the PS5 box.

As reported by Gamesindustry.biz’s Chris Dring, Horizon Forbidden West launched at the no.1 spot in the UK’s boxed sales charts, seeing the second biggest PS5 retail launch after Spider-Man: Miles Morales (back during the console’s launch in November 2020.)

The most interesting part of the report however is the fact that just one third of the boxed purchases were for the PS4 version. This is interesting due to the fact that the PS5 version costs £10 more (£69.99 vs £59.99) despite the game offering a free PS5 upgrade.

Of course, there are a number of reasons as to why this could be the case. Though the box indicates that there is an upgrade available, customers may have not known about the upgrade. Furthermore, upgrading to the PS5 version would see players needing to completely redownload the PS5’s SKU, using up added time and bandwidth.

The final possible reason could be due to players wanting to own a physical version of the next-gen game – white box and all. Regardless of the reason, it is interesting to see such a large disparity between the two versions. It will be even more curious to see how digital sales of the game differs.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of this situation? Should Sony have made the free upgrade more clear? Would you pay £10 extra for the physical PS5 version? Let us know down below.

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