Xbox price increases are likely coming after the holidays

If you’re planning on buying an Xbox Series X|S, you might want to do it this holiday season. And if you’re subscribing to Xbox Game Pass, you might want to lock in your current rate for as long as possible with a longer subscription.

Why? Because like everything else around us, the prices of Xbox products could be going up soon.

Speaking at the Wall Street Journal event today, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer alluded to a price hike for Xbox products. However, any such move from Microsoft would not happen until after the holidays. The Verge’s Tom Warren reported from the event, and here’s what Spencer said:

"“I do think at some point we’ll have to raise the prices on certain things, but going into this holiday we thought it was important to maintain the prices.“We’ve held price on our console, we’ve held price on games… and our subscription. I don’t think we’ll be able to do that forever. I do think at some point we’ll have to raise some prices on certain things…”"

Although Spencer didn’t get into specifics, many interpret his statement to mean a price hike for Xbox consoles, games and services like Xbox Game Pass. Of course, none of this would be too surprising given the current state of the global economy.

We’ve seen regular price increases on subscription services. Netflix, Hulu and others regularly raise their prices. In fact, Apple recently announced price increases for several of its service,s including Apple Music, Apple TV+ and the Apple One bundles. Disney+ is also raising its price to $11/month in December.

At just $9.99/month, Xbox Game Pass is easily the best deal in gaming. You get access to a catalog of hundreds of games plus every first-party Xbox title at launch. Since its inception, Microsoft had been more focused on growing the Xbox Game Pass user base. While the affordability of Game Pass has been a major draw, raising its price by a dollar or two wouldn’t exactly be a major hindrance, in my opinion.

As for a console price hike, that wouldn’t be too surprising either. Supply chain issues and other logistical issues have driven up production costs so it’s quite possible Microsoft would pass along these costs to consumers with a price increase. Sony recently announced a price hike for the PS5 in certain regions but the U.S. was spared from it. Sony attributed the increase to “high global inflation rates, as well as adverse currency trends.” With the dollar remaining strong globally, it’s possible that any Xbox price increase wouldn’t happen in the U.S.

And lastly, there’s the cost of video games. With the introduction of this latest generation, publishers have used this as an opportunity to increase the price of games. Many third-party publishers raised their prices to $69.99 on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S games. Microsoft, however, had kept its prices at $59.99. And, of course, if you’re a Game Pass member, you get their first-party titles for free at launch.

Given the trends we’ve seen, we can probably expect some sort of price hike. But it’s nice that it won’t be happening until after the holidays. This is likely a strategic decision on Microsoft’s part as to get the competitive edge over Sony this holiday season.