Xbox Series X and S Price Increases in Europe and UK, Fully Revealed.
Xbox Series X price increases are now fully confirmed across Europe and the UK, and the numbers are rougher than a lot of gamers were bracing for. Microsoft went into this quietly — the company announced back in June that US prices would rise but stayed silent on what the rest of the world should expect until the changes actually took effect on August 1.
The full breakdown, region by region
The gap between old and new pricing is significant almost everywhere. According to figures reported by wccftech, the Xbox Series X now costs up to €200 more in Europe and up to £170 more in the UK, depending on the specific model.
In the Eurozone, the Xbox Series S 512GB rose from €349.99 to €499.99, while the 1TB model jumped a full €200, from €399.99 to €599.99. Xbox Series X buyers are facing similar increases — both Series X SKUs are €200 higher, bringing the digital 1TB model to €749.99 and the disc version to €799.99, according to forum discussion.
UK pricing tells a similar story. The Series S 512GB climbed from £299.99 to £429.99, the 1TB model rose to £519.99, and the Series X now ranges from £619.99 for the digital edition up to £669.99 for the disc version — increases of £130 to £170 depending on the specific SKU.
Japan wasn’t spared either. Japan saw the steepest impact of all, with a flat ¥30,000 increase applied across models.
Why this is happening now
The root cause behind all of this is a global memory and storage component shortage that’s been squeezing every hardware manufacturer, not just Microsoft. Even after this latest round of increases, Microsoft is reportedly still losing around $150 on every console it sells, largely because the company lacks the kind of long-term fixed-price contracts for RAM and SSDs that some competitors have secured, leaving it more exposed to rising component costs.
That detail matters because it puts Microsoft in a genuinely awkward spot. Raising prices during a component crisis is defensible on paper, but it comes at a moment when Xbox hardware sales already lag well behind PlayStation.
A tough sales backdrop for the timing
According to a WCCFTech analysis of the situation, Sony has shipped over 95 million PS5 units so far, while Microsoft’s current total is estimated at around 35 million consoles sold — Microsoft no longer discloses exact hardware figures. That same analysis noted this generation is on track to register one of the largest sales gaps between the two platforms in console history.
There’s also a specific missed opportunity being pointed out in the coverage. Casual gamers are expected to shop for consoles ahead of Grand Theft Auto VI’s November 19 launch — the same GTA 6 timing that’s already reshaping console buying decisions across the industry — and a Microsoft-funded price freeze during that window could have positioned Xbox as the more attractive option heading into the biggest game release of the year. Instead, Xbox hardware is now more expensive relative to PS5 at exactly the moment new buyers are weighing which console to pick up.
Sony isn’t immune either, just less exposed
To be clear, Microsoft isn’t alone in raising prices — Sony has also increased PlayStation 5 and PS5 Pro pricing this year due to the same component pressures. The difference is timing and scale. Sony reportedly locked in enough memory supply to stabilize its own manufacturing costs through at least March 2027, which is helping keep PS5 pricing meaningfully below comparable Xbox models in several key markets right now.
If price increases across the console space have you rethinking upgrade plans, it’s worth remembering this isn’t isolated to Xbox. Nintendo went through a version of the same story recently — Splatoon Raiders launched as a Switch 2 exclusive just weeks before Nintendo’s own confirmed U.S. price increase from $449.99 to $499.99 arrives on September 1, meaning every major console maker is now asking buyers to pay more for the exact same hardware they were selling just months ago.
If you’ve been holding off on an Xbox Series X or Series S purchase, these increases are already in effect as of August 1 — there’s no grace period. Whether that pushes more undecided buyers toward PS5 remains to be seen, but with GTA 6’s console-defining launch just months away, Microsoft has picked an uncomfortable moment to make Xbox hardware more expensive across two of its biggest markets outside the US.