Over the past year, Xbox has been trying its best to convince people not to buy an Xbox. I know that doesn’t really make sense, but jacking up the price of your console twice in one year, increasing the price of Game Pass, and letting go of all your biggest exclusives was always going to yield that particular outcome. Long story short, it’s been a bad year for Xbox, no matter which way you slice it. And unfortunately for Phil Spencer and his motley crew, things are apparently poised to get even worse as we head into 2026.
It’s already a struggle to justify dropping money on an Xbox in 2025, especially since the price of grabbing a new one has risen from $499.99 at the start of the year to $649.99. That is a lot of money to spend on a standard console, especially when you could grab a more powerful PS5 Pro for just as much and access to better games. Despite this, Microsoft could be poised to increase the price of its Xbox consoles even more.
Xbox Consoles To Potentially Get Another Price Increase
In the latest video by tech insider and YouTuber Moore’s Law Is Dead (thanks The Game Post), it’s claimed that RAM shortages that are sweeping the US could dramatically impact Xbox “very, very soon.” According to Moore’s Law Is Dead, Xbox “didn’t plan ahead at all” for the current RAM shortages, meaning that it now faces the choice of either jacking up the price of Xbox consoles once again to offset the higher costs of production, or to stop making them and have system numbers completely dry up. Either way, not great for a console maker.
There Is No Good Reason To Buy An Xbox Anymore
With yet another price increase, there are now even few reasons to purchase an Xbox console.
As for Xbox’s biggest rival, PlayStation is apparently set for a few months, as someone at Sony had the foresight to buy up a bunch of RAM when prices were cheap. However, he does note that PlayStation console prices will likely rise as well, though later than any potential Xbox Series X price increase.
“From what I’ve heard, Sony planned ahead, bought up gobs of RAM near the bottom of the pricing, and thus they should be fine for months,” says Moore’s Law Is Dead. “They have plenty of GDDR6, at least that’s what I’m told. Prices could go up eventually; I could see that happening next year…”
Understandably, this news blows for anyone still in the market for a console, and is maybe a sign to grab one sooner rather than later. Of course, nothing official has been announced yet, but with Microsoft having already increased the price of the Xbox twice this year and consoles across the board getting more expensive, it wouldn’t surprise me if all the major platform holders start charging more pretty soon.
- Brand
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Microsoft
- Original Release Date
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November 10, 2020
- Original MSRP (USD)
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$499
- Operating System
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Proprietary (Windows-based)
- Processor
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Custom AMD 8-core Zen 2 3.8 GHz
- Resolution
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720p – 4K UHD
