Xbox head says says consoles or services could see a price hike soon

At the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference Wednesday (and cataloged by our sister site, The Verge), head of Xbox Phil Spencer revealed that Microsoft may eventually raise the prices of its consoles or services.

“We’ve held price on our console; we’ve held price on games and our subscription,” said Spencer. “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, but going into this holiday we thought it was really important that we maintain the prices we have.”

The reason for this is because Sony increased the prices of PlayStation 5 in certain regions. However, it did not do so in the U.S. Inflation and chip shortages have made consoles, cars and other machines more costly and harder to manufacture in 2022.

It’s interesting that Spencer doesn’t specify what may be seeing a price hike if and when something like that comes down the pike. At the same conference, Spencer revealed that Game Pass is finally profitable, accounting for about 15% of Xbox’s revenue. It’s possible Xbox could raise the price of Game Pass slightly to offset the rising manufacturing costs of its consoles.

Either way, it’s good to know that prices will stay where they are now through at least 2022. Although if you’re considering picking up an Xbox for yourself or a loved one in the next few months, sooner may be better than later.