Xbox boss says it isn’t the right time for a price increase on consoles

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has said it isn’t the right time for Microsoft to increase the price of its consoles.

Last month, Sony announced it would be raising the price of the PS5 by £30 / €50 across seven regions, not including the US, effective immediately. Sony Interactive CEO Jim Ryan wrote that this was down to the “current global economic environment.”

At the time, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that the company currently has no plans to raise the cost of its own current generation of consoles and in a new interview, Spencer has said that it isn’t the right time for a price hike.

Speaking to CNBC, he said: “We think in a time when our customers are more economically challenged and uncertain than ever, we don’t think it’s the right move for us at this point to be raising prices on our console.”

$MSFT‘s @XboxP3 talks #Tencent, #JRPG‘s, and @discord – and explains why it’s not time to follow $SONY‘s hike in prices. #Xbox #PlayStation pic.twitter.com/BCIY0wE8Gt

— Squawk Asia (@asiasquawkbox) September 16, 2022

However, he didn’t rule out an increase in the future. “We’re always evaluating our business going forward. So, I don’t think we can ever say on anything that we will never do something,” Spencer said.

“But when we look at our consoles today, and you talked about it – Series X and Series S – we think value is incredibly important. We love the position of Series S in the market, which is our lower cost console. Over half of our new players that we’re finding are coming in through Series S.”

“I can definitely say we have no plans today to raise the price of our consoles,” he added.

Following the increase in price of the PS5, Nintendo shared a statement that said it has “no plans to increase the trade price of its hardware”.

In other news, a recent update for Xbox Series X|S consoles has introduced a new noise suppression feature, which automatically removes unwanted background noise from party chat.