Microsoft Confirms Rising Memory Costs Will Impact Next-Gen Xbox Pricing

Asha Sharma, executive vice president and chief executive officer of Xbox, has gone on record saying that yes indeed, "memory costs will impact pricing" of Microsoft's next-generation game console. Not maybe, not might, but will. Not that this is any surprise, given everything that has already transpired, but it serves as a sobering reminder that we're not yet out of the woods and may not be for quite some time still.

This is not the fault of Sharma or Microsoft, of course, but the result of an AI-driven memory shortage that has caused prices to spike things like PC DRAM (especially DDR5 memory), laptops, handhelds, game consoles, and more.

Sharma's statement came during a recent interview with Game File, in which she fielded a question about the impact on the memory crisis and releasing timing of Microsoft's next-generation Xbox console.

"All of these things are an equation. Memory costs will impact pricing, will impact availability. As we think about being where the world plays, we will take that into consideration. So we're not ready to share a launch timeline right now. The world's pretty dynamic. My number one focus, though, is to focus on what's in our control, build a great console to play great games, including your PC games," Sharma said.

Pricing is one of the biggest question marks surrounding the next standalone Xbox console. For context, the Xbox Series X (1TB) launched at $499.99 and the Xbox Series S (512GB) at $299.99 back in November 2020. Then in late 2023, Microsoft released a 1TB version of the Xbox Series S priced at $349.99, and in late 2024, it added a 2TB Xbox Series X Galaxy Black Edition for $599.99.

All of Microsoft's Xbox consoles have gone up in price since launch. MSRPs now stand at $649.99 for the 1TB Xbox Series X, $599.99 for the 1TB Xbox Series S (Robot White), and $799.99 for the 2TB Xbox Series X Galaxy Black Edition.

Sony's PlayStation 5 lineup and Nintendo's original Switch hardware also received price hikes, as there is no escaping the memory (and storage) chip shortage, both on console and PC. And according to Sharma's comments from the paywalled interview (as seen by GameSpot), there won't be any escaping for the next round of consoles, either.