Immediately after Microsoft announced that it was raising prices on the Xbox Series X and S for the third time this generation, a small trend broke out on our tech newsfeed. A handful of stories have appeared encouraging readers to buy an Xbox console before the price hike takes 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 for it.
Allow me to play devil’s advocate.
While it’s often a good idea to plan your purchases around known price increases, now is a stupid time to buy an Xbox. Yes, even with discounts offering an Xbox Series S for $350 and an Xbox Series X for $573 – hell, especially at those prices. In 2020, the Xbox Series S launched at $300 and the Xbox Series X launched at $500. Over the past two years, I’ve personally purchased a Series X for less than $400 and a Series S for $250. These consoles are now in their sixth year, and normally around this time of the generation, hardware prices would drop and we’d be treated to cool colorways and bundles. Today’s discounted Xbox prices are obscene for a console entering its sixth year.
It’s worth noting that today’s market is particularly disorganized, fueled by a shortage of memory and storage that is driving up hardware prices across the tech sector. However, Microsoft is at the heart of the problem here. The company is exacerbating the RAM shortage with massive investments in AI data centers, and its false ignorance regarding the rising prices of Xbox consoles is laughable.
Corporate bickering aside, it’s simply not the ideal time to buy into the Xbox ecosystem. In fact, you could say there’s never been a worse time. Microsoft is in disarray after years of studio layoffs and closures, declining console profits, and changes to the leadership of the Xbox business in 2026. This month, news broke that Double Fine, Ninja Theory, and Compulsion Games are in imminent danger of being shut down, while new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and chief content officer Matt Booty paved the way for more layoffs in July.
On the software side, Xbox doesn’t offer a ton of exclusive games, as its first-party titles are widely available on PC. His recent successes like Declared, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle And Guardian are all available on Steam, and Xbox is legally obligated to distribute its biggest first-party franchises (i.e. Call of Duty) across all platforms. Not to mention the desire to offer its games on PlayStation and Switch, as fleeting as that may be. One of Microsoft’s strongest marketing points has been the fact that its games will work on later consoles and eventually come to PC, and while they don’t say it out loud anymore, the company is a leader in platform-agnostic cloud gaming. When everything is Xbox and Xbox games are available everywhere, you don’t really need an Xbox.
There’s no reason to rush out now and buy a six-year-old gaming console for more than its launch price, simply because it’s going to get even more expensive soon. If you haven’t needed an Xbox before, chances are you still don’t need one. That may be rich coming from a mainstream tech blog, but there’s no real accomplishment in collecting every piece of contemporary gaming hardware – the closest we get is influence, but the returns on likes and comments on social media are hollow and diminishing. Unlike Xbox prices, which are only increasing. The real smart move is to wait until the next generation arrives – which is apparently very soon – and either pick it up or get a Series console that will then wipe the price.
This has nothing to do with media outlets publishing articles encouraging people to take advantage of Xbox Prime Day console prices. Truth be told, there’s a very small market for these tips and it’s good to show these six people where the best deals are right now. But as advice for the general public, it sucks.
Besides, aren’t you saving up for a steam engine at the moment?
