Xbox Series X and S Prices Jump Up to £170/€200 in UK and Europe

Microsoft has confirmed the international pricing for its latest Xbox price hike, and the numbers are ugly. The Xbox Series X with a disc drive now costs £669.99 in the UK and €799.99 in Europe, up from £499.99 / €599.99, according to The Verge. That's an increase of more than 30 percent on the top-end console.

The budget option isn't spared either. The 512GB Xbox Series S jumps from £299.99/€349.99 to £429.99/€499.99, a 43 percent increase, The Verge reported.

Here's the full breakdown, based on figures confirmed by VGChartz and Insider Gaming:

UK pricing:

• Xbox Series S 512GB: £299.99 to £429.99
• Xbox Series S 1TB: £349.99 to £519.99
• Xbox Series X Digital: £449.99 to £619.99
• Xbox Series X Disc: £499.99 to £669.99

Europe pricing:

• Xbox Series S 512GB: €349.99 to €499.99
• Xbox Series S 1TB: €399.99 to €599.99
• Xbox Series X Digital: €549.99 to €749.99
• Xbox Series X Disc: €599.99 to €799.99

Microsoft first announced the hike in June for the US market only, according to The Verge, without disclosing what it would mean overseas. Now the UK and EU numbers are out, and they're worse than a straight currency conversion would suggest. GameSpew calculated that a simple exchange-rate translation of the US increase should have meant roughly £74 to £111 more per console. Instead, buyers are looking at hikes up to £170.

This is the third Xbox price increase since May 2025 and the second worldwide bump this year, according to VGChartz. The top-end Xbox Series X now costs $300 more in the US than its 2020 launch price of $499.99, per The Verge. Microsoft is also killing off the 2TB model entirely as it deals with the storage crunch.

The official explanation, echoed across every outlet covering this, is a global memory chip shortage driven by AI industry demand for RAM and storage. Insider Gaming called it "the component crisis introduced by the growth of AI and the soaring prices of memory and other critical console parts." That's a real, documented supply chain problem, not a Microsoft invention. Sony and Nintendo are both dealing with the same shortage.

But Microsoft's increases stand out. Sony raised PlayStation 5 prices in April, and even after that hike, the PS5 1TB with a disc drive is still £100 cheaper than the equivalent 1TB Xbox Series X, according to GameSpew. Sony has publicly said it has enough RAM supply to meet demand going forward, per The Verge's reporting on the broader RAM shortage, though GameSpew notes industry watchers wouldn't be shocked to see another PlayStation price bump by year's end.

The timing is rough for Microsoft on the brand side too. Xbox's new head, Asha Sharma, has been laying out a plan to reposition the brand, with hardware and traditional consoles as one of four pillars, according to Insider Gaming. Charging up to 43 percent more for that hardware right as she's trying to rebuild goodwill is an awkward look.

Reaction on gaming forums has been blunt. Insider Gaming cited comments from ResetEra users calling it "the final nail in the coffin" for the brand and saying "there is no way in 2026 I would be paying nearly £700 for a Series X with a disk drive." Whether that anger translates into actual sales collapse is unproven, but Xbox hardware has already struggled for years to move units, per Insider Gaming.

Sony isn't walking away clean either. Its decision to drop physical games from the PlayStation platform starting in 2028, reported by GameSpew, cost it real consumer goodwill even as its console pricing currently looks better by comparison.

The open question is whether this is close to the ceiling or just the latest rung. If AI demand keeps driving up memory and storage costs into 2027, nothing here suggests Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo have any relief in sight. For now, the console that launched at $499.99 in 2020 costs $799.99 in the US and £669.99 in the UK, with no price ceiling in view.