Xbox giving up on video games, raising prices across the board for hardware and software

“Market Conditions” is corpo speak for “this shit sucks ass, so we’re pawning it off on you”

Stuff really has gotten out of hand, cost-wise. Market conditions? Adjustments? Economic climate? Prices didn’t shoot up like this in 2020 when entire cities and factories were shut down.

Nah dawg, this sucks. And the bending over backwards to hide its source sucks too. But what REALLY sucks is that it’s all just so the bottom line stays the same. Gotta keep making number go up for whatever shareholder value is.

Anyhoo, diatribe aside, Microsoft has announced that it’s fully pricing itself out of many consumers’ current monetary situations by raising the cost of its hardware GLOBALLY by A LOT, due to “market conditions and the rising cost of development.” Sure! The Xbos Series S is heading north by $80 for both the 512GB & 1TB versions, to $380 & $450. The Series X will bump up by $100, with the disc version moving from $499.99 to $599.99, and the all-digital version from $449.99 to $549.99. The 2TB version of the all-digital Series X will bump up a wild $130 from $599.99 to $729.99. SEVEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY DOLLARS.

Who in their right mind would dip into that? I can’t imagine that consumers will be able to take that big of a hit, even the most hard-nosed Xbox fanatics.

Most accessories will see a $5 bump, too, with controllers and headsets becoming pricier.

And then the actual games. Currently released games will stay the same, but big new games (think Gears of War) will hit $80, matching Nintendo’s Switch 2 gaming levels.

Again, Xbox (and prviously Sony and Nintendo) are blaming the current SITUATION, but will those prices drop if things clear up? If the world suddenly becomes richer, will we see the current prices drop back down?

In Microsoft’s case, the company is already well behind Nintendo and Sony when it comes to hardware, so bumping up these prices really does feel like a white flag is being waved to try and recover whatever little there is left of their end of the physical market as they try their best to push GamePass as their way forward.

Let me repeat what I said earlier: nah, dawg, this sucks.

Source: Microsoft