Xbox will raise prices across the board (in the U.S.) for major first-party titles from $60 to $70. So will Sony and the major publishers.

Starting in 2023, games developed exclusively for the Xbox Series X|S, such as Forza Motorsport, Redfall and Starfield, will cost $69.99 at launch. Xbox has pointed out that prices may vary regionally, but has not yet given any concrete details on how things will be in Europe or even Germany in the future. That the prices will increase here as well, however, is likely to be indisputable.

 

The retail price for new video games on release has remained almost constant at $60 in the U.S. since the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, respectively; before that, most games cost around $50. All companies that are now raising prices or have announced increases cite increased development costs and high inflation as the main reasons. Understandable, even if we as gamers don’t like to admit it.

The only alternative here could be Xbox’s monthly paid Game Pass, since all self-developed first-party titles will be available there immediately. It is only a guess that the company will increase the prices for individual games in order to make its own subscription model more palatable to more customers. We use the Game Pass Ultimate ourselves and are convinced of it – because we are not among the gamers who still want to have their games physically on the shelf or own a digital copy even after years. For us, it’s enough to be able to play new and the very latest games every month – until there’s something new to discover.

The announced price increase for games does not come as a surprise. Xbox CEO Phil Spencer said back in early 2022 that the company won’t be able to keep its prices at current levels forever – but that Xbox won’t raise prices before Christmas. Xbox is also not the first company to raise the prices of its games – Sony, Ubisoft and Take-Two Interactive are also at $70. According to reports on the web, Sony is even planning to exceed that mark for certain titles as well.

Whether this means that the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles will also become more expensive is hard to say. The PlayStation 5 has already been adjusted in price in some countries, and Nintendo is also not ruling out the possibility of the Switch becoming more expensive. When Sony announced its price increase for the PlayStation, Microsoft immediately reacted with an official statement that it did not plan to raise the price of the Xbox consoles. In October, however, the whole thing looked a bit different again, when Phil Spencer praised his own company for keeping the prices stable for a long time, but sent afterwards that it could be that some prices would have to be adjusted at some point.

We are curious to see how this will continue and whether the subscription models of the various manufacturers will be the only reasonable, because affordable, alternative in the long run.