Xbox increasing console price, accessories and future games. Globally.

[Soundwave]

JackHandy said:

RolStoppable said:

The defining moment of E3 2013 was the announcement of the PS4 price at $399, $100 cheaper than the less powerful Xbox One. The physical game exchange was merely adding insult to injury.

Today there's no such thing as a "big chance" anymore. The Xbox Series sold only 2.7m units in the USA in 2024 with the trend continuing to point downwards. Sony doesn't need to do any competitive marketing anymore, because Xbox is on its way out. And in light of this Xbox price announcement, Sony is very likely to follow suit and raise their PS5 prices in the USA for the first time. Xbox is so beaten that it doesn't even matter that Jim Ryan committed a huge blunder with his GaaS offensive that resulted in several cancellations and leaves the PS first party lineup crippled for a few years.

I disagree on it being pointless. I once asked Tom Kalinske what his recipe for success was. He told me that is comes down to two things: do what your competition can't do, or do what they aren't willing to do. And right now, Nintendo is either not willing to play the part they've been playing for a long, long time, which is the cheaper, pro-consumer option, or they can't. So If Playstation's president went live and said they are going to lower prices because unlike the competition, they believe it's all about the gamers... trust me. It would reverberate. Suddenly, you have Playstation looking like saviors and everything else looking like the crooks that the cynics have been claiming they were all along. 

It would work.

Work against who exactly?

The PS4-XB1 comparison only works because that was an actual competitive race with XBox quite possibly being favored to win going into that gen as it could be argued in the US especially the XBox 360 was more popular than the PS3. Today the XBox isn't competitive and on its way to being quite possibly even retired eventually. 

Sony has no direct competitor in that sense, all they would be doing is throwing away money by not following suit with industry standard pricing. And they already have done things like increased the price on the PS5 and brought a hugely expensive PS5 Pro to market, which tells you where their head is already at. 

Low profit margins is something no one's board of directors want to hear about, no one gives that much of a shit that some broke 10-13 year old can afford games (sorry to state it bluntly, but it's the truth). It's not 1995 or 1989 anymore. 

It's not even like Sony has a choice here, the majority of software sales on Playstation platforms aren't even their own games. It's 3rd party games and 3rd parties will follow suit with $80 games the first chance they get, so exactly how does Sony convince those pubs to sell for less on the Playstation? Are they willing to waive their $8-$10 licensing fee? No chance, their entire business model is reliant on collecting 3rd party licensing fee revenue. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 04 May 2025