PlayStation within the UK has paired up with an organization referred to as Raylo to supply rental choices for an enormous vary of its {hardware}. For a whacking £24.49 ($33) a month you may get a 1TB PS5 you don’t personal, or make that £28.49 ($39) in order for you a second controller with it.
Referred to as PlayStation Flex, it purports to lease out PS5s and equipment “starting at £9.95 per month,” intentionally aimed toward clients who aren’t in a position or keen to pay the total worth up entrance. However the actuality is rather more grim.
Be part of your pals on PlayStation 5 with Flex. Lease a PS5 Digital Version console beginning at £9.95 per thirty days, for a restricted time solely: https://t.co/7O84kquQ89 pic.twitter.com/RCeCNQfdZF
— PlayStation UK (@PlayStationUK) February 12, 2026
The “starting at £9.95 per month” declare within the promotional supplies is extraordinarily deceptive. That is the worth for the weird Europe-only 825GB digital edition of the PS5, roughly understanding to $13.50 a month, however crucially solely at that charge for those who decide to a 36-month plan from which it is vitally tough to decide out. In actuality, to hire that lowest-tier console for a month and not using a contract would price you £19.49 ($26.50), greater than twice as a lot because the implied worth.
For readability, let’s deal with the 1TB standard PS5, which purports on the entrance web page of the shop to be out there for £11.59 a month ($16), however for a single month would really price you £24.49 ($33). The identical console, to purchase and personal outright, prices £479.99 ($654, with tax included in that determine).
When you signed as much as that 36-month (three-year) dedication, which you can not cancel, on the least expensive charge this may price you a complete of £417.24. So perhaps a cut price, proper? That’s £60 cheaper than shopping for it day one! Besides, no, as a result of on the finish of these three years you’ve spent your £417 on proudly owning nothing. You must give the PS5 again. The one that purchased it for a not dissimilar worth three years in the past will get—most significantly—to maintain it, and in addition has the choice of reselling it to make again a piece of their money.
This example clearly will get significantly worse for those who hire the PS5 for a shorter time frame. When you had been unable to commit past a month-to-month charge (which in fact is the case for a lot of with low incomes trying to discover cheaper entry to this tech, unable to decide to 12-month contracts, not to mention three-year ones), for the equal three years you’d have paid out £882 ($1202) for a console you don’t even personal.
Oh, and let’s not neglect, we did all this math for consoles that include only one controller. Run that once more with a few DualSense included and it’s £450 on the least expensive, £1,026 on the month-to-month rolling charge. That’s $1400 for a console you didn’t purchase. (And only for enjoyable, the PS5 Professional? $834 to $1840.)
When you can’t sustain funds…
This turns into extra insidious if you word the benefit with which these contracts could be entered into. Sony’s store states that making use of for the deal takes “60 seconds,” and that “We only do a soft credit check and applying has no impact on your credit file.” Which is to say, it’ll will let you signal as much as a long-term contract costing lots of of kilos with out checking for those who can afford it.
There may be nothing talked about on the shop pages for what occurs for those who’re unable to maintain up your funds years after making the dedication, and the location’s AI assistant fought onerous towards telling me this, however ultimately revealed that cancelling early requires having paid a minimal of 18 months of expenses, plus that month’s and the following. So for those who’ve signed up for 2 years however must cancel after 12 months, you’ll must pay one other eight months’ price of expenses to get out of the contract. What occurs for those who can’t? It wouldn’t inform me. I’m ready on a human response.
Renting electronics was as soon as a peculiarly widespread phenomenon within the UK, with Nineteen Seventies retailers like Radio Leases and Granada renting out coloration TVs and washing machines to those that couldn’t afford to purchase them outright. And naturally these individuals would go on to spend way more in month-to-month funds than the merchandise would have price up entrance. There was one other resurgence of this mannequin, however far extra predatory, within the 2010s with firms like BrightHouse engaged on a “rent-to-own” mannequin, preying on these with the bottom revenue, designed to trick customers into spending five times the real price, though individuals did a minimum of get to maintain the product. (The company collapsed in 2020 below the burden of its personal cruelty, after it was found to have deliberately sold contracts to those who couldn’t afford them.)
Raylo pushes its rental scheme as a “circular economy,” claiming renting tech is not directly extra sustainable and environmentally pleasant, as was declared during its partnership with Dyson last year. In the meantime, the corporate has relatively embraced its personal mannequin by taking on board more than £180 million of debt and equity funding in the previous couple of years, all with a view to launching within the U.S. later this yr.
