Following Sony upping the prices of PlayStation 5, the Xbox Boss Phil Spencer was asked by CNBC if they’re going to increase the prices of Xbox consoles. Spencer said they’re not planning to up the prices of Xbox consoles for the time being, but also added that they’re always evaluating their business going forward, and it’s not possible to say Xbox will never raise the prices.
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Spencer said they’re quite happy with how the Xbox Series X and S are doing at the moment in the console market and added that over half of Xbox’s new players are coming from Series S, the lower-cost version of the new-gen Xbox consoles. Spencer’s final words on the matter were:
“I can definitely say we have no plans today to raise the prices of our consoles. We think that in a time where our customers are more economically challenged and uncertain than ever, we don’t think it’s the right move for us at this point to be raising prices on our consoles.”
Under Spencer’s leadership, Xbox had a very rough period during the so-called “console wars” versus Sony. Earlier generation consoles, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 had similar weaknesses and strengths initially, but the Xbox team focused on having the superior gaming console hardware-wise meanwhile Sony’s side aimed at publishing high-quality story-driven AAA games.
However, the current generation of consoles has seen Microsoft’s Xbox make a huge leap across multiple areas, including mergers and acquisitions. The company acquired Bethesda for $7.5 billion in 2021 and agreed to acquire Actisivion Blizzard for $68.7 billion, however, this deal is yet to be approved by regulators.
Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass is doing incredibly well as well, and the company even announced a family plan version for the subscription service.