Xbox warns it will raise prices for games, consoles and Game Pass very soon

This is going to hurt. Given that the past few months have felt like a corporate race to see who can raise their prices more and not lose all their consumers, like Netflix and even Sony, we could have expected something like this. But now Xbox’s own Phil Spencer has come out to warn people about a price hike for the gaming brand. At least it seems like it won’t be until after the Holidays.

“I do think at some point we’ll have to raise the prices on certain things,” said Spencer, head of Xbox, while speaking to The Wall Street Journal. “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…”

Netflix, Amazon, Sony, Disney… all have gone up

What Phil Spencer didn’t specify in his statements was exactly what will go up in price (they wouldn’t raise ALL of their products, would they?). Maybe Microsoft will follow in Sony’s shoes, which raised the price of the PlayStation 5 a few months ago, after more than two years on the market. Maybe he’s referring to the games, since the competition already raised those to $70 USD. Or perhaps, this all means that Xbox Game Pass will cost more per month in every one of its tiers, which currently are a lower ask for arguably more content than what PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium cost.

However, inflation and price hikes are not centralized to the gaming industry. Netflix just confirmed the end of account sharing, Disney announced recently that ads will come to Disney+’s basic subscription, and many more services have gone up in price. It seems to be a time to tighten our belts and maybe sacrifice one or two streaming platforms. For our wallets.

Source | Phil Spencer (via Tom Warren)