It's Xbox's turn (again), as console prices keep going up

Plus: Sony cuts at least 292 jobs at Bungie

Microsoft announced a price hike for the Xbox Series consoles today, the third in little over a year.

Effective August 1, the Xbox Series S, which launched in 2020 for $300, will cost $500 in the U.S.

The Xbox Series X, which launched in 2020 at $500, will go for $800.

This follows a round of PlayStation 5 price increases from Sony this spring, and a slow-motion increase for Nintendo’s Switch 2, which will kick in in the U.S. in September. (Mind you, there were also eight video game industry price hikes in six months of 2025).

The chart up top shows the sudden ascent of console prices over the past year, a sudden surge in an already unusual hardware generation. Prices had been flat for years, now “up” is the new “flat.”

Game console prices used to go down across the length of a console generation, but not this time around.

Microsoft’s explanation for the new price hike today:

We hoped another price increase would not be necessary, and we have spent the last several months working with suppliers on options. Unfortunately, console storage and memory prices have increased by more than 2.5x and we expect another doubling by the fall of 2027. The entire consumer electronics industry is struggling with the current components crisis, but the effects are particularly hard on consoles. Unlike phones, computers, speakers, and other consumer devices, consoles are typically not sold at a profit, but instead for less than they cost to make.

This is an issue well beyond game consoles. Apple announced price hikes on its computers and tablets today as well.

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Item 2: Brutal Bungie cuts

Bungie laid off “most” of its Destiny development team and some developers who worked on Marathon, the newest game from the struggling Sony-owned studio.

A WARN notice issued by Sony to Washington State, where Bungie is based, tallied cuts impacting 292 workers, effective next month. That’s strictly for Bungie/Sony jobs in Washington and wouldn’t account for any elsewhere.

The video I clipped below shows the redacted list of Bungie cuts filed to Washington State officials. As you’ll see, I had to scroll for a while…

In a note emailed to PlayStation workers and published online, PlayStation game studios chief Hermen Hulst offered the following explanation for these latest cuts at Bungie:

This is painful news, especially for talented colleagues whose roles have been eliminated. This decision was made only after extensive discussion and careful consideration, and I want to provide some context on how we arrived here. Over the past several months, together with Bungie leadership, we reviewed the studio’s long-term direction, development priorities, resource needs, and role within our broader portfolio strategy. We explored multiple alternatives before concluding that a reduction was necessary to align the studio’s resources with its current priorities and long-term goals.

In 2022, Sony bought Bungie for $3.7 billion. The studio’s marquee game, the multiplayer live service shooter Destiny 2 was losing popularity at the time. Its next game Marathon, released earlier this year, has been well-reviewed but had a slow start.

Bungie is renowned for making great shooter games, and Destiny fans have mourned the wind-down of Destiny 2. They’ve also expressed bewilderment over reports that Destiny 3 is not, per Bloomberg, immediately in the cards.