Xbox boss Phil Spencer says Microsoft won’t raise the price of its flagship consoles soon, but he hasn’t ruled out a price bump in the future.
Consumers have been wondering if Microsoft will increase the price of the Xbox One to account for rising production costs after Sony increased the price of the PS5 last month. While the internet giant doesn’t have any plans to do so at the present, Spencer told CNBC that may change in the future.
Spencer stated, “I don’t think we can ever claim on anything that we would never do because we are continually analysing our business going forward.”
“At this time, we have no intentions to increase the price of our consoles,” the spokesperson confirmed. We don’t believe it’s the right time or place to be raising pricing on our consoles at a time when consumers are facing greater economic hardship and uncertainty than ever before.
Mistake of epic proportions
Xbox boss said the success of the digital-only Xbox Series S proved the company’s focus on value. Over half of all Xbox sales are now made up of the budget hardware, which is a great alternative to the more expensive Xbox Series X.
Microsoft will want to maintain that advantage and is crossing its fingers that the global processor scarcity Sony cited to justify the PS5 price increase doesn’t affect it. A lesser chipset means that the Xbox One S’s individual components are easier to acquire and create, making the system more resilient to manufacturing shortages than the other current-gen consoles.
Xbox Game Pass is a great deal, and when purchased in conjunction with the Xbox Series S, makes it one of the most cost-effective gaming systems now available. Microsoft would be making a terrible mistake by raising the price of the console, as doing so would severely diminish its main selling feature.
In particular, if Nintendo sticks to what president Shuntaro Furukawa promised Nikkei last month and maintains the pricing of the Nintendo Switch unchanged, the console will sell very well. Currently, Sony stands alone. Microsoft will want to maintain that benefit for as long as they can.