Microsoft made a bold move at the start of the current console generation, offering two consoles with very different price points. The Xbox Series X offered top-tier performance that made it the industry leader, but at a premium price of £449. A second offering, though, the Xbox Series S, focused on people who didn’t need a console that was able to deliver impressive 4K visuals, and this released at a far more affordable £249. The PS5 Digital released at £359.99.
Oh, how things have changed. This Black Friday sales period Sony is offering the PS5 Digital (a disc drive-less model with 825GB of storage for £289. That’s about £70 less than the launch price, but a far more impressive £140 less than the console’s current RRP of £429.99 – a price it reached after an increase due to economic conditions changing over the course of the last five years.
The even more startling situation as of right now, during a Black Friday price promotion period, is that the difference between the Xbox Series S (now priced at £269 following a price hike) and the PS5 Digital is just £20. Plus, the PS5 Digital offers over 300MB more in-built storage.
While the PS5 Digital’s low price is great news for consumers, the price gap to the Xbox Series S shows just how much Xbox is a hard sell in the market at the moment. On top of the Xbox Series consoles costing more today than at launch, Xbox is now releasing its games across multiple platforms that include the PS5 and Switch 2, and it’s considerably raised the price of Xbox Game Pass.
Many tech companies are increasing prices of products due to market conditions, but it doesn’t change the fact that Microsoft’s budget console offering now simply doesn’t have an obvious market. With the company also seemingly doing nothing to temp consumers over this Black Friday period, the messaging doesn’t look good. Sony seems intent on getting a PS5 into as many homes as possible, while Xbox appears to be hardly trying at all.
