Xbox Series X price rises £170 as memory chip costs climb

Microsoft has raised Xbox console prices across the UK, US, and EU, blaming rising costs for RAM and storage chips that have been pushed up partly by demand from AI firms.‍

The Xbox Series X with a disc drive now costs £670 in the UK, up £170 from its previous £500 price tag. The Series S has risen to £430, a 43% increase on its former £300 retail price.

The increases follow a warning Microsoft issued in June, when the company said it had hoped another price rise would not be necessary. In the US, a base console now costs $499, up $100, while a higher-memory model costs $749, up $150. EU customers face similar increases, with one Series S configuration rising by approximately €200.

Microsoft is not alone. Sony raised PlayStation 5 prices by £90 in March, and both Sony and Microsoft have now cited component costs as the reason for passing higher prices to buyers. Valve also launched its PC-console hybrid Steam Machine at a higher price than initially expected, pointing to the same pressures on hardware suppliers.

RAM, once a commodity component used to provide devices with short-term memory, has become significantly more expensive. AI companies competing for high-bandwidth memory to run large language models and training workloads have driven prices up across the board. Graphics cards face a parallel dynamic: demand from AI content generation pipelines has reduced supply and lifted prices for the same components that power gaming consoles and PCs.

The result is that hardware released years ago now carries a price tag that reflects 2025 supply chain economics rather than its original launch positioning. The Xbox Series S, first released in 2020, has attracted particularly sharp criticism for its new £430 price, given that it was originally marketed as the affordable entry point into the Xbox ecosystem.

Critics have been direct. Windows Central editor Jez Corden wrote on X that the current prices are "not even the ceiling", suggesting further increases are possible. Reaction across social media ranged from frustration to outright rejection, with one Reddit commenter describing the Series S increase as "highway robbery for a console released 6 years ago".

The broader pattern across the gaming hardware market points to a sustained period of elevated component costs rather than a temporary spike. AI infrastructure buildout continues to absorb large volumes of the memory and processing components that consumer electronics manufacturers rely on, meaning the competitive pressure on supply is unlikely to ease quickly.

For Microsoft, the price rises come at a difficult moment. The company has already restructured its Xbox division, cutting staff earlier this year. Raising prices on hardware that has been on the market for several years risks accelerating a shift among budget-conscious buyers toward PC gaming or rival platforms, particularly as the PS5 has also become more expensive.

Neither Microsoft nor Sony has indicated when, or whether, prices might fall. For now, the cost of entry into either console ecosystem has risen sharply, and the AI-driven demand reshaping the semiconductor market gives manufacturers little reason to expect relief from suppliers in the near term. The Xbox division faces pressure on two fronts: sustaining hardware sales at higher prices while competing for the same components as some of the world's largest technology companies.