Xbox Price Hikes Are Make-or-Break Moment for Game Pass
Microsoft’s decision to raise the prices of its current-gen systems by 25%, more than four years after their 2020 launch, sent shockwaves through the gaming industry last week.
Trump’s proposed tariffs on hardware manufactured overseas made price hikes an expected reality. Nintendo’s $450 asking price for its upcoming Switch 2 system was already interpreted as a preemptive response to the tariffs, as was the decision to make launch title “Mario Kart World” an $80 game.
Xbox is following suit as well, raising the price of new premium games to $80 going forward, as opposed to $70, which was normalized as recently as 2020.
But raising the price for aging consoles is fairly unprecedented. Typically, a console’s midway point in its lifecycle is when prices come down, often alongside the release of high-end updated systems for which console manufacturers can justify charging more, as was the case with Sony’s PlayStation 5 Pro in 2024.
In Xbox’s case, Microsoft is truly testing the limits of its brand loyalty — and how much heavy lifting its Game Pass subscription service can manage.
As covered in VIP+’s new “State of the Video Game Industry” special report, last year capped a decade of PlayStation outselling Xbox consoles, with the difference approaching as much as five times. In a year when sales of the cheaper Nintendo Switch were already down, PS5 clearly stole the show.
Still, “Call of Duty: Black Ops 6” was the bestselling game of the year, achieving a record launch for the franchise in its second year releasing a new title as a Microsoft asset and the first as a day-one title on Game Pass.
Despite stalled growth and Microsoft’s reluctance to divulge subscriber numbers after doing so for years, Game Pass is still playing a major role in the gaming ecosystem outside of AAA releases. April’s critically acclaimed “Blue Prince” debuted on Game Pass and PlayStation Plus while selling for $30 outside of subscriptions, enabling it to become the talk of the month.
Then in May, “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33” also debuted on Game Pass alongside an individual multiplatform asking price of $50. It went on to sell 3 million copies in 12 days, earning a nod from French President Emmanuel Macron in the process.
Per Ampere Analysis, Xbox was the top platform for “Expedition 33.” Despite its status as the lowest-selling console, Xbox saw 45% of all the game’s players flock to its ecosystem, a flex that wouldn’t be possible without Game Pass.
Even more impressive: Microsoft-owned Bethesda dropped its remaster for classic title “The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion” alongside the release of “Expedition 33,” and the latter still sold as well as it did. Ampere noted the “Oblivion” remaster also saw the greatest share of engagement on Xbox, despite its availability on PS5 and PC.
All of this comes after extensive cost-cutting at Microsoft Gaming, which shed thousands of jobs and multiple studios in the past few years, most heavily in January 2024. Despite Microsoft’s resources as a cloud leader and the boon in revenue for its gaming division after acquiring Activision Blizzard in 2023, the new price hikes are a sign the company is far from finished reevaluating its gaming brand.
Amid all this, Xbox games are still selling on PS5 and do incredibly well there. In April, the PlayStation Store’s top three sellers were all games published by Xbox.
If Microsoft is going to make its consoles tougher to buy and sell premium games for $80 when more affordable games such as “Blue Prince” and “Expedition 33” have proven their worth on its own platform, the only move the company has left is getting Game Pass on PlayStation. Across PS5 and the older PS4, that’s a good 100 million or so players Game Pass hasn’t tapped, excluding those who may already be subscribers through PC and other devices that support it.
Keep in mind that “Grand Theft Auto 6,” easily the most anticipated new console title on the horizon, was just delayed from this fall to May 2026. Many expect “GTA 6” to reverse the course of the console sector’s headwinds and earn around $3 billion in its first year, so its delay is an unresolvable blow to Xbox and PS5 alike this year.
With stakes that high, Xbox must lean in on its customer-friendly subscription offering, which could prove more valuable than ever to subscribers with costs getting this high.
Now dig into the VIP+ subscriber special report …
Trump’s proposed tariffs on hardware manufactured overseas made price hikes an expected reality. Nintendo’s $450 asking price for its upcoming Switch 2 system was already interpreted as a preemptive response to the tariffs, as was the decision to make launch title “Mario Kart World” an $80 game.
Xbox is following suit as well, raising the price of new premium games to $80 going forward, as opposed to $70, which was normalized as recently as 2020.
But raising the price for aging consoles is fairly unprecedented. Typically, a console’s midway point in its lifecycle is when prices come down, often alongside the release of high-end updated systems for which console manufacturers can justify charging more, as was the case with Sony’s PlayStation 5 Pro in 2024.
In Xbox’s case, Microsoft is truly testing the limits of its brand loyalty — and how much heavy lifting its Game Pass subscription service can manage.
As covered in VIP+’s new “State of the Video Game Industry” special report, last year capped a decade of PlayStation outselling Xbox consoles, with the difference approaching as much as five times. In a year when sales of the cheaper Nintendo Switch were already down, PS5 clearly stole the show.
Still, “Call of Duty: Black Ops 6” was the bestselling game of the year, achieving a record launch for the franchise in its second year releasing a new title as a Microsoft asset and the first as a day-one title on Game Pass.
Despite stalled growth and Microsoft’s reluctance to divulge subscriber numbers after doing so for years, Game Pass is still playing a major role in the gaming ecosystem outside of AAA releases. April’s critically acclaimed “Blue Prince” debuted on Game Pass and PlayStation Plus while selling for $30 outside of subscriptions, enabling it to become the talk of the month.
Then in May, “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33” also debuted on Game Pass alongside an individual multiplatform asking price of $50. It went on to sell 3 million copies in 12 days, earning a nod from French President Emmanuel Macron in the process.
Per Ampere Analysis, Xbox was the top platform for “Expedition 33.” Despite its status as the lowest-selling console, Xbox saw 45% of all the game’s players flock to its ecosystem, a flex that wouldn’t be possible without Game Pass.
Even more impressive: Microsoft-owned Bethesda dropped its remaster for classic title “The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion” alongside the release of “Expedition 33,” and the latter still sold as well as it did. Ampere noted the “Oblivion” remaster also saw the greatest share of engagement on Xbox, despite its availability on PS5 and PC.
All of this comes after extensive cost-cutting at Microsoft Gaming, which shed thousands of jobs and multiple studios in the past few years, most heavily in January 2024. Despite Microsoft’s resources as a cloud leader and the boon in revenue for its gaming division after acquiring Activision Blizzard in 2023, the new price hikes are a sign the company is far from finished reevaluating its gaming brand.
Amid all this, Xbox games are still selling on PS5 and do incredibly well there. In April, the PlayStation Store’s top three sellers were all games published by Xbox.
If Microsoft is going to make its consoles tougher to buy and sell premium games for $80 when more affordable games such as “Blue Prince” and “Expedition 33” have proven their worth on its own platform, the only move the company has left is getting Game Pass on PlayStation. Across PS5 and the older PS4, that’s a good 100 million or so players Game Pass hasn’t tapped, excluding those who may already be subscribers through PC and other devices that support it.
Keep in mind that “Grand Theft Auto 6,” easily the most anticipated new console title on the horizon, was just delayed from this fall to May 2026. Many expect “GTA 6” to reverse the course of the console sector’s headwinds and earn around $3 billion in its first year, so its delay is an unresolvable blow to Xbox and PS5 alike this year.
With stakes that high, Xbox must lean in on its customer-friendly subscription offering, which could prove more valuable than ever to subscribers with costs getting this high.
Now dig into the VIP+ subscriber special report …