Gamers furious as Xbox confirms major price hikes across products
Xbox have repeatedly touted their Game Pass subscription service as the 'best deal in gaming', but recent price increases for both consoles and games leave fans with a sour taste in their mouths.
It seems like prices are going up everywhere right now - especially in the wake of President Trump's wild tariffs plan - but the world of gaming appears to becoming particularly more expensive to maintain as a hobby.
Gamers are already fresh off the back of complaints surrounding price increases for Nintendo games, and while the Switch 2 thankfully remained at its originally advertised price, all of the console's accessories saw a bump in cost.
Things aren't too great on the PlayStation side of things either, as certain countries just recently got a painful price increase for PS Plus less than a year after the last one - although the supply of great games has managed to make some feel better about it in the meantime.
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Xbox is the latest to demand more from its consumers' wallets though, as reported by IGN, with a number of price hikes across the board that are really quite difficult to stomach for many.
Chief among the price hikes are the two console versions themselves, as both the Xbox Series S and Series X are significantly more expensive in the United States going forward.
For the Series S, the 512GB and 1TB versions will now cost $379.99 (from $299.99) and $429.99 (from $349.99) respectively, whereas picking up a Series X will set you back $549.99 ($449.99) for the all-digital version and $599.99 (from $499.99) for the version with a disc drive.
Roughly $100 price increases near the back end of a console generation are simply unheard of, as this is typically the time at which Sony and Microsoft would be looking to discount their hardware ahead of a soon-to-arrive revision, yet trends are clearly not set in stone.
Consoles aren't the only thing that's more expensive now either, as the price of peripherals and games are also going up. The luxury 'Elite' controller, for example, will now cost $10 more, and new first-party games will begin to be at the $79.99 mark around the holiday season.
As for the reason behind the price increases, Microsoft explained in a statement to IGN: "We understand these changes are challenging, and they were made with careful consideration given market conditions and the rising cost of development.
"Looking ahead, we continue to focus on offering more ways to play games across any screen and ensuring value for Xbox players."
Some might be willing to speculate that this is a last hurrah before Xbox moves away from the primary console market, especially if you consider the repeated emphasis on playing 'across any screen', but it's not been well received regardless.
"An absolute joke," writes one commenter on Reddit, speculating that they "expect to see Sony follow suit, probably before GTA VI is out."
Another has added that they "understand the reason for the increases but increasing the price of a console 5 years after launch might just be the nail in the coffin for dedicated Xbox hardware."
Some are blaming Nintendo for 'kicking off' the trend of hiked-up costs, pointing out that Rockstar must be thankful that GTA 6's likely increased price won't be too much of a shock at this point.
With the increased prices going live right now though, there's little wiggle room for anyone who was planning on picking up a new Xbox console ahead of the exciting summer of game releases we have ahead of us.