Big prices hikes for Xbox consoles in the UK
Key Points
- Xbox console price hikes have hit the UK, with some versions of the consoles increasing in cost by more than 40%.
- The Xbox Series X 1TB is now priced at £669.99, while the Xbox Series S 512GB has risen in price from £299.99 to £429.99.
- These price increases are a direct result of the global hardware shortage cause by surging investment in AI and demand for hardware that can be used to train and power AI models.
- Xbox price hikes hit the UK after the company announced its biggest restructure in history, cutting 3,200 roles in the coming year.
Price hikes for Xbox consoles have now landed in the UK, with the cost of some devices increasing by more than 40%.
Microsoft previously announced price increases for Xbox hardware in June, but it only supplied information on US pricing.
Now that it has also raised its product prices in the UK and Europe, we can look at just how much more expensive the same hardware is for customers today.
Below are the old and new prices for Xbox consoles, which have now been updated on the Xbox UK store page:
- Xbox Series S 512GB – £429.99 (was £299.99)
- Xbox Series X 1TB – £519.99 (was £349.99)
- Xbox Series X Digital 1TB – £619.99 (was £449.99)
- Xbox Series X 1TB – £669.99 (was £499.99)
These price increases are significant, and reflect just how tight the AI boom has squeezed the supply of components used in gaming consoles.
High-throughput memory and graphics hardware have been in increasingly short supply, as AI companies use the same hardware to train and power their models, leading to a global shortage that has had a knock-on effect across the computing, smartphone, and gaming industries.
Xbox is not the only company being forced into price hikes as a result of this phenomenon (PlayStation hiked prices a few months ago for consoles in the UK), but it is facing a further bout of challenges internally.
A game-changing restructuring for Xbox
Last month, Xbox announced a significant organisational change: the company will cut 3,200 roles through FY 2027 and drop four studios from its stable.
In an email sent to all employees, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced that 1,600 roles would be eliminated immediately and the restructure of the company would take a year, describing it as the most significant in the company’s history.
Sharma said the business was not healthy and its bet on Game Pass and release strategy did not pan out as the company expected.
She also pointed directly to the AI-related hardware shortage as the most severe hardware crisis in the company’s history, placing further pressure on the beleaguered gaming firm.
Sharma said Xbox will invest as much in the business this year as it ever has, and that the company will return to growth in 2027.
