It’s not just the price of its games that Microsoft will increase in 2023, its consoles as well. In an article posted by Famitsu, we learn that the American giant will increase the price of its Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S by 5,000 yen (50 dollars) from February 17 on Japanese soil. Xbox Series X will drop from 54,978 yen to 59,978 yen, while Xbox Series S will be priced at 32,278 yen instead of 37,978 yen. Obviously, Microsoft accompanied this announcement with a press release in which it explains “having carefully assessed the state of the market in Japan, and decided to modify the retail price of Xbox consoles in the country”before adding: “We regularly assess the impact of local pricing to maintain reasonable consistency between regions. This pricing review affects our customers and was a difficult decision to make, but going forward we will continue to offer the experience Ultimate Xbox our customers have come to expect.”
Six months after the increase in the PS5 and having explained that the price of its consoles were not going to increase in 2022, Microsoft is therefore aligning itself with this economic situation which is pushing large groups to review their overall prices. Of course, if Japan is the first country affected by this inflation, there is no doubt that the rest of the countries will also be affected by this increase of $50 / €50 in the months to come…
