Microsoft increases prices on Xbox consoles, and more
London, UK – Microsoft has officially announced significant price increases across its Xbox product line, impacting consoles, accessories, and, later this year, first-party video game titles. The company cited 'market conditions and the rising cost of development' as primary reasons for the adjustments.
Effective immediately, the price hike affects all Xbox Series consoles globally. Notably, the Xbox Series S (512GB) now retails at $379.99, up from $299.99, while the Xbox Series X (Standard Edition) rises to $599.99 from its previous $499.99. The limited Galaxy Special Edition of the Series X now costs $729.99, marking a considerable $130 increase.
In terms of accessories, wireless controllers will see price revisions ranging from $64.99 to $89.99 depending on the model. The Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 (Full Package) increases to $199.99 from $179.99. Meanwhile, U.S. and Canadian customers will also face higher prices on Xbox headsets, with the Wireless Headset now priced at $119.99, up from $109.99.
Although game prices remain unchanged for now, Microsoft confirmed that by the 2025 holiday season, new first-party titles will be priced at $79.99. This move aligns Xbox with broader industry trends, following similar price strategies adopted by both PlayStation and Nintendo.
In an official statement Microsoft said: 'We understand that these changes are challenging, and they were made with careful consideration given market conditions and the rising cost of development. Looking ahead, we continue to focus on offering more ways to play more games across any screen and ensuring value for Xbox players.'
Upcoming first-party titles expected to adopt the $79.99 pricing include Call of Duty 2025, Fable, Perfect Dark, Clockwork Revolution, Everwild, Gears of War: E-Day, OD (by Hideo Kojima), and State of Decay 3. Fans may receive additional details during Microsoft's upcoming Xbox Games Showcase and The Outer Worlds 2 Direct event in June.
This marks the first price increase for the Xbox Series S since its 2020 launch. Microsoft had previously refrained from raising U.S. prices during earlier global adjustments in 2023, even as competitors such as Sony introduced multiple regional increases on PlayStation 5 hardware.
As economic pressures continue to impact manufacturing and development costs across the gaming sector, analysts expect further pricing recalibrations to remain a possibility industry-wide.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Observer
3 days ago
- Observer
AI agents will soon assist you in real life
Eid holidays are just a few days away. Some people and families are planning to travel, while others just plan to search and book local hotels and for some activities that they and their children could engage in around the city as a retreat. I know for a fact that I personally need a quick getaway plan immediately after Eid to refresh, re-energise, and prepare for the remaining engagements set for the next balance months (the second half of the year). The good news is that all this (search and booking) is now virtually possible today on the information superhighway (the internet). The bad news is that it would require one to research so as to spend a considerable amount of time in order to have an ideal plan created. For the executives or the likes, this may be an easy affair via their personal assistant. For the rest, it's a tedious manual activity that one cannot avoid, unfortunately. Wouldn't it be just awesome if there were a digital assistant or helper who could fulfil the service for you? Welcome to Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents. What are they and how do they work? is what I will focus on in my article today. First things first, let me clarify that AI agents are not chatbots or voice assistants (like Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, and Samsung's Bixby). AI agents are digital assistants/helpers that go beyond just responding to user inputs/prompts where they actually act proactively and not reactively to user/your requests per se. Simply, they understand what you want (as in your goals) and find out ways (as programmed via logic) on what to do to get you the ideal results (for your goals). The typical AI consumer apps that many use today (e.g., ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claudia, etc.) are based on LLMs (Large Language Models), yet AI agents are powered by LLMs. They are proactive (don't wait for you to ask things) but instead get things/tasks done for you. Examples include reading your emails, reviewing your calendar, scheduling meetings in advance, analysing and summarising reports, and/or making decisions on your behalf using a logic (programmed or taught to them). The sky is the limit on what these AI agents can do for you, and time will prove their worthiness (as you are witnessing today with ChatGPT and similar apps). How do these AI agents actually work? Quite simply, you set a goal, and it goes out to get it or them done for you. For example, referring to my wish at the beginning of the article today on a getaway travel plan, I would set a plan via the AI agent as 'Look for the best hotel deals in Indonesia under a specific budget X and closer to specific attraction X.' Obviously I will share the budget in mind and a few attractions I have heard of or been recommended. The AI agent would, in return, break down the query/input into smaller actions, surf the web, summarise if it found anything via the links generated, probably draft an email, communicate and negotiate with the hotel(s) and attraction(s) in question, reflect on the outcome received, and return with a recommendation (and sometimes even decide and take action for you, as you had programmed it/them to do). What more? These AI agents can also talk with other AI agents and support one another to get you the final result. Pretty cool? Yes, and trust me, it's not part of a science fiction movie but rather a reality in the making. AI agents are quite new and in the early stages of their full potential. Human intervention and/or supervision may still be required at times to ensure it works and is trained correctly. Nevertheless, like at the beginning of the consumer AI apps of the likes of ChatGPT and the rest, I expect AI agents to mature and become extremely useful in the coming year or so, where almost everyone (including myself) will have a digital helper at the office and/or at home, supporting 24/7 on every and any task, including Eid holiday getaways that I mentioned at the beginning of the article this week. Until we catch up again, I wish you a blessed and happy Eid Mubarak.
Observer
20-05-2025
- Observer
Microsoft strikes deal with Musk to host Grok AI
Seattle - Microsoft on Monday said its cloud servers will now host Grok from Elon Musk's xAI, days after the chatbot went off the rails with talk of "white genocide" in South Africa. Musk told an event hosted by Microsoft that his company's models "aspire to truth with minimal error," adding that "there's always going to be some mistakes that are made." The Grok chatbot last week ignited controversy by answering unrelated user prompts with unbacked right-wing propaganda about purported oppression of white South Africans. In a recorded conversation with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Musk said that xAI would always acknowledge mistakes with its Grok AI models. "It's incredibly important for AI models to be grounded in reality," the Tesla tycoon said. Generative AI models are often pre-programmed by engineers -- through things known as system prompts -- to give or avoid specific responses or convey certain moods or styles, no matter the input given by the user. Most recently, the latest model from industry leader OpenAI was found to be generating overly sycophantic responses, and the company quickly said it would make changes to remove the bug. The answers provided by Grok drew alarm as they reflected a conspiracy theory often shared on social media by Musk, who was born in South Africa. The company did not identify who made the code change, but said an "unauthorized modification" directed Grok to provide a specific response that "violated xAI's internal policies and core values." Faced with criticism, the startup said it was implementing measures to make Grok's system prompts public, change its review processes and put in place a "24/7 monitoring team" to address future incidents. While not specifically referring to the incident, Musk told the Microsoft event that xAI will practice transparency when mistakes are made. This could be interpreted as a dig at archrival OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, which is Microsoft's main partner to build its in-house Copilot models. OpenAI, which was co-founded by Musk in 2015, is often criticized for keeping its technology's internal workings secret, as opposed to more open models like Meta's Llama or the technology from the Chinese company DeepSeek.
Times of Oman
05-05-2025
- Times of Oman
Global AI spending to increase by 60% to $360bn in 2025
New Delhi: Global artificial intelligence (AI) spending is projected to rise significantly in the coming years, with UBS estimating a 60 per cent year-on-year increase in 2025, to $360 billion. The momentum is expected to continue in 2026, with a further 33 per cent rise to USD 480 billion. However, the share of spending attributed to the Big 4 tech giants -- Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta -- is anticipated to decline, falling from 58 per cent in 2025 to 52 per cent in 2026. The report said "we expect global AI spend to increase by 60 per cent y/y in 2025 to reach USD 360bn and 33 per cent in 2026 to reach USD expect the combined share of these companies as a percentage of AI spend to rise from less than 20 per cent in 2023 to more than 40 per cent in 2025". It also highlighted that this broadening of AI spending across a more diverse set of players is a healthy development for the overall AI theme. A reduced concentration of investment among a few companies could eventually lead to less volatility in the market, the report said. Spending outside the Big 4 is expected to reach a robust USD 150 billion in 2025. A significant portion of this is projected to come from China, which is likely to account for 35 per cent of the total spend outside the Big 4. According to UBS, the rise in China's AI investments is being driven by the success of low-cost models such as DeepSeek, strong government support, and the growing use of AI in consumer-facing applications like e-commerce, social media, and advertising. The report mentioned that the Neocloud providers--companies offering specialized AI-integrated cloud services--are also emerging as a key segment, expected to capture around 25 per cent of the non-Big 4 AI spending in 2025. The remaining spend is likely to come from other hyperscalers and enterprise or sovereign cloud providers, including players such as Oracle and Softbank.
