Xbox has been a financial juggernaut for many years. It has always been a true rival to Playstation, and often outclassing it in terms of player appeal. The Game Pass brought more people over to the side of Xbox versus Playstation with its Playstation Plus membership. Xbox also offers backward compatibility with its older games unlike Playstation. With all these benefits, why does it seem like Xbox is losing the battle in the gaming industry? Sure Playstation may bigger and better exclusives and graphically better games, but that never use to be a factor in the fight between Xbox. Nintendo may be reaching the younger crowd and the family market, but again that never stopped Xbox from outclassing it. So what is the reason for the decrease in appeal for Xbox? Well the sudden decision to increase the pricing of everything might have something to do with it. Well then why increase the price on their consoles? The reasons may surprise you.
X Marks the Box
The original Xbox console was released on November 15th 2001. The system was priced at $299, and sold over 24 millions units. Four years later the Xbox 360 was released. This system was also priced at $299, but sold more units than the original with 84 million sold. This console closed the gap with Playstation and was partly responsible for the rise in online gaming. In November of 2013, the Xbox One was released. This console had different versions, and with different versions comes different pricing. For the base console, you’d be paying $399; however if you wanted to have a Kinect included with the system, you’d be paying $499. The Xbox One sold roughly 51 million units. Finally we’ve come to the Xbox Series X/S. These consoles were released in November of 2020. Like the Xbox One, the Series X/S were sold for different prices. The Series X is listed as $499, and the Series S is at $299.
The Problem With Microsoft
Both Sony and Microsoft started this round of next gen consoles on equal footing, but slowly the favor moved towards Sony and the PS5. What happened? Well Microsoft might be sabotaging themselves. On January 18th 2022 it was announced that Microsoft began attempting to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion dollars. While that alone is a tedious process, it became even more so when the lawsuits and allegations against Activision Blizzard. On top of that, Sony announced a price increase for the PS5. Desperate to keep up with the competition Microsoft announced that they would also increase the price of their console. The Series S’s price was increased in India, Sweden, and many others. In August of this year the price of the Series X will increase everywhere excluding US, Japan, Chile, Brazil, and Columbia. As if making their consoles more expensive wasn’t enough, Microsoft decided to keep making things worse for themselves.
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Along with the increase in pricing of their consoles Microsoft announced it would also increase the price of the Xbox Game Pass. For those unaware of the Game Pass, it essentially allows Xbox players to play a large amount of games across Xbox’s large library of games both new and old. This outclasses the Sony equivalent in Playstation Plus. One of the things that made Game Pass superior was the reasonable pricing, but now the price is increasing. Starting July 6th, both the base and ultimate Game Pass subscriptions will increase. The base subscription will increase from $9.99 to $10.99 a month. The ultimate subscription will increase from $14.99 to $16.99 a month. If you’re a current Game Pass subscriber, you’re subscription won’t be affected until August 13th; if you live in Germany you’ve got until September 13th. Although it’s not a HUGE price increase, it’s still an upsetting and aggravating thing to deal with. If you’re a PC Game Pass owner you’re in luck! The price for the PC Game Pass will not increase.
Microsoft seems to be on the losing side of the console wars with the Activision Blizzard ordeal, console price increase, and Game Pass increase; however not all hope is lost. Despite all these set backs, Microsoft has someone keeping it going, the fans. While yes you’ll naturally lose people because of scandals and having to pay more for things, but most players will continue to support Microsoft and Xbox simply because they enjoy their content. Are you Xbox player or Playstation? Does all the “mishaps” with Microsoft change your opinions on them and their products? Let us know down in the comments!
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