Well, here it is. A few months after Xbox boss Phil Spencer warned us all of potential price increases across the Xbox division, the company's current-gen consoles are officially going up in price in Japan.
Revealed by Japanese outlet Famitsu, both Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S console prices are increasing by 5,000 yen in the region, or about $40 US. Interestingly, both consoles are seeing the same price jump, which means Xbox Series S is getting the bigger percentage increase here.
The RRP leap takes effect on February 17th in Japan, so from that date onwards, current-gen Xbox consoles are going to cost a fair amount more for Japanese Xbox fans.
Alongside the price increase announcement, Xbox Japan put out a statement detailing why the change was considered necessary (translated by Gematsu):
"After carefully evaluating the market condition in Japan, we have decided to change the suggested retail price of Xbox consoles in the country. We regularly evaluate the impact of local pricing to maintain reasonable consistency across regions. This price revision affects our customers and was a difficult decision to make, but going forward we will continue to provide the ultimate Xbox experience that our customers expect."
For now, Microsoft hasn't announced any console price hikes across the US and Europe, although the cost of upcoming Xbox first-party titles has been raised to £70 / $70, as evidenced by Redfall's pre-orders which went live last week.
What do you make of this news? Expect things to change over in the US/Europe soon? Let us know what you think.
[source famitsu.com, via gematsu.com]
Comments 15
Is this the 4d chess big brain move to finally make Xbox big in Japan 🤔
they basically sell nothing there.
so if other regions follow, its very poor to be saying-
we have games.... price Increase on games and hardware
This will generate hundreds of dollars of additional revenue per month for MS.
To be fair, this may be about the currency situation. The yen has been really weak against the dollar for a while now.
On a side note, it is a great time to buy things from Japan if you are in the US or another country with a similar exchange rate situation.
This is a strange one, since the TGS sale promotion they had the series consoles have struggle to sell more than 1000 units weekly in Japan. This is just going to cement that trend.
If anything they should be permanently lowering the cost of the Series S if they want to get a proper foothold in Japan.
@EliJapan what’s not here is they just announced the XSX Forza bundle coming to Japan the same day as the price increase.
Raise the price without any games to make anyone potentially willing to pay the higher price to actually pay it. Outstanding move.
Fund a new Mistwalker RPG you cowards
@LX_FENIX no games? Exaggerate much?
Well that's a....weird move. I know it's exchange rate based, but.... Just as Xbox starts increasing sales in a market they've always struggled in, just as PS starts gaining more traction.....they RAISE the barrier to entry. That's odd. I'm guessing at current exchange rates they're selling at a loss and they'd rather sell nothing than sell at a loss....but that's not a great way to improve presence in a market they're clearly trying to improve results in.
@Savage_Joe Quite frankly I think "globalism" should have been outlawed decades ago. Keep markets local and tariffs high. Protectionism? Not quite. Market balance. The whole idea of "globalism" has shifted into weird currency value shell games like this were supply and demand doesn't even determine pricing and instead investment clearing house sleight of hand determines value. It seems like it makes no sense because it does make no sense, the investment capital, not the actual product supply and demand determines value and pricing, decoupling economics from the actual market which is as destructive to a market as it sounds. Too much supply, not enough demand? Raise prices!! Because the cash itself is what's on trade, not the product and the "market" is just a middle man clearing house for cash transactions, not representatives of market demand for goods and services.
@Jarobusa A little yes, but before HiFi Rush, when is the last time Xbox got a Japanese exclusive? And on that note, look at how many Japanese games Xbox doesnt get that the Playstation and Switch get.
They can't get third party games and just now got an exclusive for the first time in forever. There's almost no reason for Japanese players to consider Xbox so that price increase will only make it more irrelevant in the country.
I do not understand this move at all.
Japan moved so few units as it was that they could have left the price untouched and not lose that much money on the region, but this is sure to slow down growth in the region.
Unless… they somehow made enough “market research” to end in the conclusion that the current state of Xbox in Japan is at “Rock bottom” and a price drop won’t slow down growth any further. This can be true with some niche products in some markets, but I am very skeptic of this.
Tangent fanboy topic: Xbox should make some partnerships with Sega, allow them to produce a “compatible” console that can run Xbox games (simply a re-skinned Xbox with Sega logos all over, even in the dashboard.) That might actually grow its Japan market a bit, and I would gladly import one on top.
@Tharsman I don't think that would move the needle in Japan. AFAIK Sega consoles never actually sold very well in Japan, most of their success was overseas, selling mostly flops in Japan.
However, screw the Japan market I WILL PREORDER THAT BAD BOY WHERE DO I SIGN!?
They really wanna kill Xbox in Japan as quick as possible, huh?
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