Bad news for gamers. The prices of Xbox brand products – including consoles, controllers and helmets – increase this Thursday. The most popular models such as Xbox Series X and Xbox Series see their prices increase by almost 50 euros and increase respectively to 599.99 and 349.99 euros.
The accessories are also concerned. Video game lovers will now have to pay 64.99 euros for a basic wireless controller against around 60 euros so far.
In addition, some new games produced by studios controlled by Microsoft will be offered at $ 79.99 in the United States, or 14 % more (69.99 dollars so far).
This Thursday afternoon, it was still possible to obtain consoles to the old prices on baker, E. Leclerc or Fnac sites. Micromania, however, did not drag to apply the new prices.
A loss brand
“We are aware that these changes are difficult” to be taken for consumers, said Microsoft (Xbox’s parent company) in a press release published on its site. “They were decided after careful thinking,” added the group, “given market conditions and the increase in the cost of development” of consoles and games.
-It is very rare to see a console manufacturer raise its prices several years after the launch of a game terminal, the dominant model consisting, most often, to make, on the contrary, lower the price during the life cycle. The SERIES S and X were launched at the end of 2020 and have already been sold at around 30 million copies, according to the estimates of several specialized firms.
The impact of Trump customs duties
But the brand has been losing speed for a few years. Consoles sales fell on the old continent. According to BFM, it only sold 290,000 Xbox in 2024 in Europe, compared to 550,000 in 2023.
Even if Microsoft did not mention it directly, the shadow of customs duties imposed by Donald Trump on the United States’s business partners also weighs on the video game sector. Xbox consoles are essentially manufactured in China to whom the Trump government applied 145 % customs prices on many products.
In mid-April, its competitor Sony had announced an increase in the price of several models of its PlayStation 5 console (PS5), but only in certain markets, Europe among others, excluding in particular the United States. The Japanese entertainment giant had reported a “difficult economic context, marked by high inflation and fluctuating exchange rates”. The PS5 are also assembled, for the most part, in China.
