PS Store has a helpful new feature, but why has it been quietly introduced now?

Today, people are starting to notice a change to the PlayStation Store. Now, if you look at a game on sale, you’ll see a handy feature that shows the lowest price over the last 30 days. This can give you an idea of the deal being offered. Is it truly a good deal, or would you be better off waiting for a deeper price drop? Currently, this feature is only available if you’re viewing a product directly on the console, and that product is on sale. At least at the time of writing, the PS Store on PC or mobile doesn’t appear to have the feature yet. There was no special announcement on the PlayStation Blog to share that this feature has launched or anything like that, so it had me wondering, why has PlayStation introduced this feature now?

The PS Store has a good new feature for customers, but why now?

There have been plenty of third-party options to see this information, though, of course, that is not the easiest or most intuitive information to access, especially for the more casual console player. Generally, this is a great feature that will help consumers make sure they’re not getting taken advantage of. Without this, it’s much easier for certain sellers to suddenly bump up the base price, then advertise a deep “discount” while actually charging a similar price. This kind of scam relies on users making a snap decision to take advantage of the perceived discount. Adding this feature to the PS Store helps fight against this.

Games on sale on the PS Store will now show the lowest price in the last 30 days.Source: PlayStation Store

The information can be found just below the game’s star rating and just above the current discount. As you can see, with many of these major titles, the current discount matches the lowest price in the last 30 days, indicating that these deals are likely not scams, and chances are there won’t be a deeper discount anytime soon.

So, what gives? Is this just an example of PlayStation being a benevolent storefront? Trying to help out consumers in any way they can? Not exactly. This change has been made quietly, without any fanfare, but don’t mistake it for a humble corporation quietly trying to do what’s right. This kind of feature has been required by law in much of the EU for the last few years. It’s much more likely that PlayStation and Sony are keeping ahead of regulations like this rather than doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.

It is possible that the timing is just making this change look reactionary. PlayStation could genuinely just be trying to help out its customers. However, given the knowledge that PlayStation is facing lawsuits in multiple countries about overpricing games on their store, I hesitate to give them the benefit of the doubt.

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