Xbox has confirmed that it won’t be doing a similar price hike to the one Sony has announced with the PS5.
Speaking to CNBC last night, Xbox boss Phil Spencer confirmed that there will no price hike for Xbox consoles. It comes after Sony surprised players by increasing the price of PlayStation 5 consoles.
Spencer said “In a time when our customers are more economically challenged and uncertain than ever, we don’t think it’s the right move for us at this point to be raising prices on our consoles.”
PS5 prices increased to £479.99/€549.99 recently. There was no price increase in the United States of America.
Why did Sony raise prices?
Sony said the “global economic environment is a challenge that many of you around the world are no doubt experiencing. We’re seeing high global inflation rates, as well as adverse currency trends, impacting consumers and creating pressure on many industries. Based on these challenging economic conditions, SIE has made the difficult decision to increase the recommended retail price of PlayStation 5 in select markets.”
Meanwhile, Spencer noted that value is incredible important to the company. He mentioned how successful the £250 Xbox Series S has been, and how it helps people who might want a new console but can’t afford more expensive ones.
“Y’know, we’re always evaluating our business going forward so I don’t think we can ever say on anything that we will never do something. But when we look at our consoles today, we think value is incredibly important.”
Nintendo has also stated that it has no plans to increase the price of its Nintendo Switch console.
Meanwhile, Sony has criticised Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard. PlayStation head Jim Ryan stated that the deal to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation was “inadequate”. Microsoft said keeping Call of Duty on PlayStation is simply a good business decision due to its position as a market leader.
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