
According to the President of Xbox themselves, the next generation of Xbox hardware is going to be a “very premium” and “very high-end” experience… which we all know is rich people speak for “the poor people aren’t going to be able to afford this”.
Microsoft apparently isn’t just content with jacking up the prices of all their current-generation hardware and subscription models, because it would seem that they’re warning us ahead of time that the next-gen Xbox systems are going to cost an arm and a leg.
The last few months have been a pretty disastrous PR nightmare for the Xbox brand. The downward spiral started somewhere around July, when Microsoft announced that they were cutting thousands of jobs across the company.
Roughly 9,100 employees were let go, including staff at both Rare and Bethesda, and multiple games were cancelled as a result.
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Then the price increases began. Xbox Series S 512GB consoles went from $379.99 to $399.99. Xbox Series X consoles increased from $599.99 to $649.99. And, most notably, they jacked up all the prices of their Xbox Game Pass tiers, with the cost of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate increasing by a whopping $10 per month.
If you thought this was just a blip and is only indicative of the current economic market, then oh boy, do I have some bad news for you, because it doesn’t sound like the next generation of Xbox hardware is going to be any cheaper.
As spotted by TheGamer’s Joshua Robertson, Xbox president Sarah Bond sat down with Mashable to discuss all things Xbox, and they managed to squeeze a morsel of info out of her regarding the next model of Xbox hardware.
“The next-gen console is going to be a very premium, very high-end curated experience," Bond revealed in the interview.
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“You're starting to see some of the thinking we have in this handheld [ROG Xbox Ally], but we don't want to give it all away.”
It doesn’t take a huge leap to figure out exactly what “very premium” and “very high-end curated experience” translates to. We all know that video games are a luxury, but she may as well have outright stated that you’ll need to remortgage your house if you want to afford one.
Also, Microsoft just released the ROG Xbox Ally and the ROG Xbox Ally X for $599 and $999, respectively. If that’s how much an Xbox handheld is going to set you back in 2025, I’d wager that the next generation of Xbox console is easily going to cost upwards of four figures.
Topics: Xbox, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, Microsoft, News, Xbox Ally