Microsoft Won't Drive Up Xbox Pricing Amidst PS5 Price Hike

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Does it make sense to follow suit?

Microsoft
(Image credit: Microsoft)

Sony's decision to increase the price of its PlayStation 5 game consoles due to inflation rates and the global economic environment has surprised the industry, as this is not something console developers usually do. But since the company did it, Microsoft will not follow suit with its Xbox Series X|S machines.

Our colleagues from WindowsCentral have asked Microsoft about its plans concerning the prices of its latest Xbox consoles and got a relatively unambiguous answer.

"We are constantly evaluating our business to offer our fans great gaming options. Our Xbox Series S suggested retail price remains at $299 (£250, €300) the Xbox Series X is $499 (£450, €500)."

Just like Sony, Microsoft still cannot meet the demand for its Xbox Series X game console almost two years after its release. Amazon sells these systems only to qualifying customers with invites. In contrast, Newegg offers Series X only in combos valued well above the MSRP of $499 (with a $709 combo being the cheapest option). Even though demand for Xbox Series X exceeds supply, Microsoft has no plans to hike the product's price, at least for now.

With an estimated 16 million units sold worldwide, Microsoft's latest Xbox Series X and Series S game consoles are somewhat less successful than Sony's PlayStation 5, whose life-to-date shipments exceed 22 million. Meanwhile, Microsoft's Xbox is traditionally considerably less popular than Sony's PlayStation in Japan and Europe.

Like Sony's PlayStation 5, Microsoft's latest Xbox Series X|S game consoles are based on system-on-chips designed by AMD and featuring Zen 2 general-purpose cores and an RDNA 2-based graphics processing unit. The latest consoles from Microsoft and Sony have similar, yet incompatible, system architectures too and even have identical RAM and storage capacities (16GB GDDR6, 1TB storage). Microsoft's consoles are produced by Foxconn and Flextronics, whereas Sony uses its production capacity and Foxconn's services.

In general, the two companies seem to face similar challenges with parts procurement, production capacity, logistics, and inflation rates, yet only Sony decided to increase the pricing of its PS5.

Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

20 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Gam3r01
    On the one hand, this is a solid marketing move to attempt to attract more sales.
    On the other hand, consoles are not usually something the typical person falls for marking over, but rather habit.
    Most people out there looking to get a console probably have one in mind, and wouldnt easily be convinced otherwise.
    Reply
  • 10tacle
    Gam3r01 said:
    Most people out there looking to get a console probably have had one in mind, and wouldn't easily be convinced otherwise

    Besides myself, I know quite a few people in my gaming circle of friends out there who have a long history of Playstation and Xbox console owning and gaming over PC mostly due to cost factor. However, the past 2 years of both Sony and Microsoft to not be able to keep up with demand have pushed many to give up even trying for a 5th generation console of either brand (Xbox S doesn't count). Several I know got into PC gaming for the first time last holiday season as consoles were still MIA a year later. I helped three build their first gaming PC. The XB gamers specifically didn't miss a beat with already having an XB account for easy tranition to Windows based PC gaming. Falling GPU prices due to the cryptocurrency crash and excess PC hardware inventories further makes building one's first gaming PC even more attractive.
    Reply
  • They’re not raising prices on imaginary product? You still can’t buy one in the store so basically it’s vaporware

    It’s been so long I’m not even interested anymore. Don’t care if they ever sell another one. good luck on them selling games when they can’t even get the hardware out the door

    Instead of raising prices they should focus on making more hardware. That way they could have actual sales and make some money
    Reply
  • pclaughton
    Mandark said:
    They’re not raising prices on imaginary product? You still can’t buy one in the store so basically it’s vaporware
    They've sold over 38,000,000 units combined. If that number of functioning products in the wild counts as "vaporware", then that word has been overused to the point of losing all meaning.
    Reply
  • pclaughton said:
    They've sold over 38,000,000 units combined. If that number of functioning products in the wild counts as "vaporware", then that word has been overused to the point of losing all meaning.
    That many and I still can’t buy one. Like I said vaporware. I don’t know how they’ve sold that many. I’ve never seen them in the stores and they’re not available on Amazon or any other place.

    If you don’t like my comments then too bad it’s vaporware until every person who wants one can buy one

    Hey guess what everyone I’m not going to raise prices on some thing that you can’t even buy anyway. It makes no sense
    Reply
  • TJ Hooker
    Mandark said:
    I’ve never seen them in the stores and they’re not available on Amazon or any other place.
    Don't know if you're in the US, but if so you can buy one right now at Walmart.com or Xbox.com.
    Reply
  • Gam3r01
    Mandark said:
    That many and I still can’t buy one. Like I said vaporware. I don’t know how they’ve sold that many. I’ve never seen them in the stores and they’re not available on Amazon or any other place.

    If you don’t like my comments then too bad it’s vaporware until every person who wants one can buy one

    Hey guess what everyone I’m not going to raise prices on some thing that you can’t even buy anyway. It makes no sense
    Vaporware, by definition, is a product that does not physically exist.
    As stated above, millions of units have shipped, just because availability is not great does not make it vaporware. Sure its an issue, but thats not correct to call it vaporware.
    Reply
  • Co BIY
    By the numbers Microsoft isn't as effected by the "parts procurement, production capacity, logistics, and inflation rates, " because they are not having to build as many units.

    I can't blame Sony for raising the price to maintain the margin on a winning product.

    I also applaud Microsoft for holding the line on their MSRP. (which I assume is to try and improve their competitive position.)
    Reply
  • spentshells
    Sony is again selling a superior product ps3 wasnt that great but ps4 and ps5 are quality products.
    Reply
  • TJ Hooker said:
    Don't know if you're in the US, but if so you can buy one right now at Walmart.com or Xbox.com.
    Refurbished on xbox.com. I never see new. As of right now I don’t see any
    Reply