Sony managed an awkward little pricing face-plant around ”Marathon”: during a PS5 open-access week, some players saw the Deluxe edition listed for $14, while the base game cost $40. The catch was buried in PlayStation Store logic, which treated the purchase as an upgrade rather than a full game sale, so users were only being charged the difference.
The company fixed the PlayStation Store pricing quickly, but not before the internet did what it does best. Sony updated the store page to make clear that the cheaper option only unlocks Deluxe bonus content for the open-access period, not the game itself. After the free week ends, anyone who wants that content will still need to buy the standard version separately.
How the PlayStation Store pricing mix-up happened
The confusion seems to have come from the wording around Deluxe Edition. According to Mp1st, the description made it easy to believe the bundle included the game itself, which is a bad look for a storefront that should be doing the opposite of improvising. The result was a temporary loophole that looked like a bargain and felt like a bug.
- Base game: $40
- Deluxe price briefly shown: $14
- What the discounted price actually covered: Deluxe bonus content only
- What it did not include: the full game
Why players were annoyed anyway
Even after the correction, the episode left a sour taste because it touched the one thing stores are supposed to get right: price clarity. That matters even more for a live-service-style release like ”Marathon”, where early perception can shape whether people see the game as a premium product, a premium perk, or just another confusing storefront exercise.
The backlash on social platforms and Reddit was predictably sharp, aimed at both Bungie and Sony. And honestly, that reaction is earned; when a game’s shopping page needs a decoder ring, the problem is not the players. The smarter move now is simple: cleaner store copy, fewer ambiguous upgrade paths, and no more accidental discounts that only exist in a legalistic fever dream.
What Sony will need to avoid next
This kind of mistake is not new in digital storefronts, but it is especially clumsy for a high-profile shooter trying to build momentum before launch. The open-access week should have been a straightforward marketing push; instead, it became a reminder that confusing packaging can spread faster than any trailer. If Sony wants to keep the conversation on the game itself, the store page will have to do less talking in code.