It's getting more and more expensive to play on a console. At the beginning of April, Nintendo revealed the price of the Switch 2: at €470, the new model is €170 more expensive than the first-generation Switch. Sony followed suit, increasing the price of the PS5 Digital Edition by €50 in mid-April (this model now sells for €500). And now, the latest in the pack is following its comrades: Microsoft has made a general increase for the Xbox.
Playing on Xbox has never cost so much
The increase on Xbox consoles is around 10%. The Xbox Series S 512GB model now costs €349.99, which is €50 more than before. The Xbox Series X "Digital Edition" (without optical drive) cost €499.99: you will have to pay €549.99. The Series X 2TB, the highest-end model in the catalog, is now sold for €699.99 instead of €649.99.
These increases will probably do nothing to improve the image of Xbox consoles among gamers, who have been ostentatiously avoiding them for quite some time. Xbox is far behind PlayStation in the home console market; in its latest financial results for the first calendar quarter, Microsoft announced a 6% decline in Xbox hardware sales.
The label waltz doesn't stop at consoles, however. At the same time, Microsoft is also increasing the price of controllers: €5 off the Core model at €64.99, and €20 off the Elite Series 2, now priced at €199.99.
Finally, and this is a major trend in the industry, games will also cost more. Microsoft is warning that some of its new games coming out for Christmas will cost $80 (physical or digital). That's $10 more than the current price of AAA titles. Nintendo has also led the way in this area by increasing the prices of several Switch 2 games, which will cost from €70 to €90.
Fortunately, nothing is changing for Game Pass, whose prices increased last summer. Microsoft blames "market conditions" and the steep rise in development costs.
Source: Xbox
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