Following Microsoft’s announcement that it was raising the prices of the Xbox Series X and S for the third time this generation, a bit of a trend broke out in our tech news feed. The flurry of news just spurred readers to go out and buy an Xbox console before the price hike goes into effect on August 1. Combine this deadline with the lure of active Prime Day deals on Xbox consoles, and the message from these articles is clear: The best and most financially responsible time to buy an Xbox is now, so go do it.
Let me play devil’s advocate.
While it often makes sense to plan purchases around known price increases, it’s a dumb time to buy an Xbox. Yes, even with discounts that offer the Xbox Series S for $350 and the Xbox Series X for $573 – hell, especially at these prices. In 2020, the Xbox Series S launched for $300 and the Xbox Series X for $500. Over the past few years, I’ve personally picked up a series X for under $400 and a series S for $250. These consoles are now in their sixth year, and usually at this point in a generation, hardware prices will be dropping and we’ll be getting cool colors and bundles. Today’s discounted Xbox prices are outrageous for a console entering its sixth year.
It’s worth noting that today’s market isn’t changing in a different way, driven by memory and storage shortages that are driving up hardware prices across the technology industry. However, Microsoft is the main part of the problem here. The company is making up for the lack of RAM by investing heavily in AI data centers, and its feigned ignorance about Xbox console prices is laughable.
Corporate chicanery aside, it’s not a good time to buy into the Xbox ecosystem. You could say there has never been a worse time, in fact. Microsoft is reeling from years of layoffs and studio closures, declining console profits, and changes at the top of the Xbox business in 2026. Just this month, news broke that Double Fine Games, Ninja Theory and Compulsion Games are in danger of being shut down, while new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and Chief Content Officer Matt Booty are preparing for more layoffs in July.
On the software side of things, the Xbox doesn’t have a ton of exclusive games, as its first-party titles are widely available on PC. Its recent hits are like this He agreed, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle again The keeper they’re all available on Steam, and Xbox is legally obligated to distribute the biggest first-party franchises (ie, Call of Duty) to all platforms. That doesn’t mean it’s a push to get its games onto PlayStation and Switch, however short-lived that may be. One of Microsoft’s loudest selling points has been the fact that its games will run on the next consoles and eventually come to PC, and even if they don’t say it out loud, the company is a leader in platform-agnostic cloud gaming. If everything is Xbox and Xbox games are available anywhere, you don’t need an Xbox at all.
There’s no reason to rush out now and buy a six-year-old gaming console above its launch price, because it’s going to cost a lot more soon. If you haven’t needed an Xbox before, you probably don’t. This may be rich from a consumer technology blog, but there is no real-world success in collecting all the components of today’s gaming hardware – the closest we get is tension, but the gains in likes and comments on social networks are in vain and diminishing. Unlike Xbox prices, which only go up. The real smart move is to wait until the next generation comes out – which is obviously soon – and either take that or hold onto a Series console that will be priced to drop.
This is nothing against media outlets carrying stories encouraging people to take advantage of Prime Day Xbox console prices. In fact, there is a very small market for this advice and it is good to show these six people where the best deals are at the moment. But as advice for a general audience, it’s ridiculous.
Besides, aren’t you saving a Steam machine right now?
