Final Update: And so the last piece of the price increase puzzle has fallen into place, with Xbox Series X consoles officially having gone up in price from $749 AUD to $799 AUD across local Aussie retailers, Amazon and the official Microsoft store.
The price increase seemingly hasn’t affected bundles, like the Diablo IV Xbox Series X bundle at $849, technically making it the better value option if you’re newly in the market for a console.
It comes after price increases also hit Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Xbox Game Pass for Console subscribers, which you can read about below. As a more positive part of the restructure, Microsoft will also be introducing Xbox Game Pass Core which replaces Xbox Live Gold and gives members access to a limited library of Game Pass titles. You can read about that here.
Update 2: And it’s happened – Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will now cost $18.95 per month for new subscribers while Xbox Game Pass cost $11.95 per month. Current members with an active sub won’t see the change until either August 13th or whenever their subscription comes up for renewal at a later date.
The front page of the Xbox Game Pass portal still shows the old prices at the time of writing, but clicking through to actually sign up will give you the new ones:
Update: July 6th has rolled around, which means these price changes will start affecting new Xbox Game Pass subscribers very soon. At the time of writing (9:30AM AEST) you can still sign up to an Xbox Game Pass subscription at the old price of $15.95 for Game Pass Ultimate or $10.95 for Xbox Game Pass. Those prices will jump up to $18.95 and $11.95, respectively, as soon as the next billing cycle comes around.
Xbox does allow members to stack up to three years of Game Pass, so if you’re desperate to lock in the current value we’d suggest checking with your local retailer about the availability/validity of existing prepaid cards today.
Original Story: Two major price increases are set to hit Xbox customers, with both the Xbox Series X console and Xbox Game Pass seeing price increase in select territories around the world – including Australia.
As reported by The Verge, the Xbox Series X console will be increasing in price from $749 AUD to $799 AUD, putting it in line with the increase that the PlayStation 5 saw last year. The price increase will take effect in Aussie stores starting from August 1st.
Meanwhile, Xbox Game Pass subscription prices will be raised across both the Xbox Game Pass for Console and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership tiers. The monthly price for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will move from $15.95 AUD per month to $18.95 AUD per month, and the base Xbox Game Pass for console pricing will see a jump from $10.95 AUD up to $11.95 AUD per month. These changes will take effect from July 6th for new members, or as of August 13th for anyone with an existing, recurring subscription. There won’t be any change to pricing for PC Game Pass subscriptions.
We already pay a pretty favourable amount for Xbox Game Pass locally, with the new US price for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate working out to around $25 AUD per month, so things could certainly be worse.
“We’ve held on our prices for consoles for many years and have adjusted the prices to reflect the competitive conditions in each market,” said head of comms, Kari Perez, in a statement to the outlet.
With Bethesda’s enormous Microsoft-exclusive RPG, Starfield, on the horizon and set to push sales of both Xbox Series X consoles and Game Pass subscriptions, there’s definitely never been a more appropriate time for Microsoft to try to claw back some cash on their Xbox offerings. We’ll be sure to update this story if there are any other developments.
