Britons must pay up to £170 more for this six-year-old gadget

Microsoft quietly increased price tags across its XBOX consoles over the weekend — and for those who were already struggling to justify the outlay for a new console, this is a devastating price hike. The US technology firm had already confirmed plans to increase price tags, but we didn't know how much more UK players would be asked to cough up.

Speaking earlier this month, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed: "We hoped another price increase would not be necessary, and we have spent the last several months working with suppliers on options."

In the United States, XBOX consoles increased between $100 and $150, depending on the model. Microsoft didn't confirm the price rises coming to the UK and mainland Europe ...instead, it quietly increased price tags across its online store over the weekend with little fanfare. And it makes the US price hikes seem comparatively reasonable.

Britons must now pay between 34% and 49% more compared to last month.

The XBOX Series X with a 1TB hard drive — the flagship console from the brand before it released a beefier 2TB version midway through the lifecycle — has increased from £500 to £670. That's £170 more, an increase of 34%.

Over in Europe, the situation is just as grim, with prices climbing by €200 to reach €800.

The most affordable console, XBOX Series S with 512GB of storage, designed to make this current generation of consoles accessible to more players, has been hiked from £300 to £430 (an increase of 43%), while its 1TB sibling rises from £350 to £520 (48.5%). Ouch.

The increases affect every single XBOX model in the lineup, making this one of the steepest price hikes the gaming industry has seen. Here's what you'll now be paying for each XBOX in the UK:

The price hikes across mainland Europe are just as painful, with the most affordable entry-level console rising to a record high to cover the cost of components.

Spiralling hardware costs are linked to a worldwide shortage of components, specifically the storage and memory chipsets that provide the brains for consoles... and almost every other piece of consumer technology. The culprit is the massive boom in Artificial Intelligence (AI), with the rapid expansion of vast data centres gobbling up resources faster than manufacturers can make them. Apple recently increased its prices across several of its iPads and MacBooks. Sony also raised the costs of its PlayStation 5 consoles.

Memory and storage prices have already jumped by more than 2.5x, and Microsoft warned back in June they could double again by autumn 2027. Despite the rising hardware costs, these consoles are still being sold at a loss. Revenue is typically clawed back via the sale of software, either on disc or via the preinstalled XBOX Store on every console. The reaction to rising prices has been scolding.

One player summed up the mood: "There is no way in 2026 I would be paying nearly £700 for a Series X with a disk drive."

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"That’s highway robbery for a console released 6 years ago," one agreed. Another joked: "They really do seem like they're just trying to destroy their own business."

XBOX Series X and Series S consoles were first launched on November 10, 2020.