One week after confirming that ongoing global economic pressures meant price increases had become inevitable, Xbox has increased the price of the Series X in India.
When the PlayStation 5 went up in price for the exact same reasons, Xbox head Phil Spencer was quick to state that Xbox saw no reason to follow suit. Though Spencer enjoyed the opportunity to stick the boot into Sony, and the fresh gap in price between the Series X and the PS5, his comments always came with a significant asterisk — the dreaded “For Now.” He never quite promised that the prices wouldn’t move, but he projected the confidence of someone who didn’t envision price changes in the near future.
But, as hard economic realities have begun to set in, Spencer has been forced to spend a few days out of every month since August slowly walking those comments back. Even the company’s beloved Game Pass subscription platform has not been immune from talk that its vaunted $12-a-month price point couldn’t last “forever.”
And it seems like the price changes have already begun in India. Interestingly this is not the first time Xbox has raised the price of the Series X in India this year. It’s the third price increase since January. Xbox is already fighting an uphill battle in the region, the market landscape well and truly dominated by the PlayStation. To pick up a Series X in India will now run you 55,990 INR (or $AU1,068, which is well above our local retail price of $749.95). On top of this, Xbox is jacking up the price of accessories and controllers as well.
The question, obviously, becomes a matter of ‘why?’ Xbox may have simply come to terms with its diminutive market share in India and, rather trying to chip away at Sony’s stranglehold on the region, its chosen to juice its profits instead. It’s not a great reason for the price increases by any stretch, but it could explain their frequency.
So, what does this mean for the wider APAC region? What does this mean for Australia and New Zealand? Well, nothing yet. The price changes in India could be a portent of things to come, or it could be nothing more than Xbox taking the market’s temperature in a region where it has less to lose. Now that we know Xbox has had to sell its consoles at a more significant loss than first thought, it lends credence to the idea that price changes across the Xbox range could be much closer than we think. Most people know (or at least assume) that hardware makers like Xbox sell their consoles as close to cost as possible, and sometimes below cost, making up the balance on games and accessories. Anyone who’s ever worked at an EB Games or JB Hi-Fi can tell you this — you can’t even get a staff discount on a console because there’s no margin in it, and therefore no discount to give. With its hardware losses at a stage where Spencer has indicated Xbox is having to subsidise every console sold, a price increase would help Xbox keep its losses under control.
It’s just unfortunate that that burden has to fall on you, the consumer.
Time will tell on all of this, and not just for Xbox. For now, Xbox fans in Australia and New Zealand can only play the waiting game.
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