Microsoft Won’t Drive Up Xbox Pricing Amidst PS5 Price Hike
Sony’s decision to raise the price of its PlayStation 5 game console due to inflation and the global economic environment has taken the industry by surprise as it’s not something console developers normally do. But since the company did it, Microsoft won’t be following suit with the Xbox Series X|S machines.
our colleagues Windows Central (opens in new tab) When we asked Microsoft about its plans for the pricing of its latest Xbox console, we got a relatively clear answer.
“We are constantly evaluating our business to provide our fans with great gaming options. The Xbox Series S MSRP remains at $299 (€250, €300). $499 (€450, €500).”
Much like Sony, Microsoft has been unable to meet the demand for its Xbox Series X gaming console almost two years after its release.Amazon We sell these systems (opens in new tab) Only eligible customers with an invitation.By contrast, Newegg Series X is combo only (opens in new tab)Well worth the MSRP of $499 ( $709 (opens in new tab) Combo is the cheapest option). Demand for the Xbox Series X is outstripping supply, but Microsoft has no plans to increase the price of the product, at least for now.
With an estimated 16 million units sold worldwide, Microsoft’s latest Xbox Series X and Series S gaming consoles haven’t been as successful as Sony’s PlayStation 5, which has shipped over 22 million units to date. Microsoft’s Xbox, on the other hand, has traditionally been considerably less popular than Sony’s PlayStation in Japan and Europe.
Like Sony’s PlayStation 5, Microsoft’s latest Xbox Series X|S gaming console is based on an AMD-designed system-on-chip, featuring Zen 2 general-purpose cores and RDNA 2-based graphics processing units. . The latest consoles from Microsoft and Sony have similar but incompatible system architectures and have the same RAM and storage capacity (16GB GDDR6, 1TB storage). Microsoft’s consoles are manufactured by Foxconn and Flextronics, but Sony uses its own production capacity and the services of his Foxconn.
In general, both companies appear to face similar challenges in component sourcing, production capacity, logistics, and inflation, but only Sony has decided to raise the price of the PS5.