Here’s Why The Xbox One X Isn’t Priced Lower Than $500

Last week, Microsoft introduced the Xbox One X to the world, with a release date of November 7th and a price of $499. While that seems suitable to those that can afford a luxurious 4K-style set-up in their homes, there are some fans balking at that high price, wondering why Microsoft couldn't sell it for cheaper.

Apparently there's a reason for that. Mike Ybarra, corporate vice president for Xbox and Windows Gaming, recently spoke to Polygon over Xbox One X pricing. And he noted that if the system ended up being cheaper, like around $399, it wouldn't be able to produce a full-on 4K experience as promised.

"When we looked at the overall design, we could do less memory. We could do under-clocked components so we don't have to have the cooling system that we have in here. There's any number of things you could think of," he explained.

"This is designed for the premium gamer that wants the absolute best experience. And so compromising any of those then makes that message much harder to communicate to them. We showed them the smallest Xbox we've ever created, the most power, the best price per performance you can get anywhere, in this box. That's what we're delivering.

I think if you start taking away some of those items, people will say, 'Well, what were your goals?' And that's an area that we don't want that confusion to exist.

"[At $399] we wouldn't have been able to usher in 4K to the living room, and that was a design pillar for this box. There's lots of goals in the program, from compatibility to everything. But one, let's really usher in true 4K where developers don't have to think about, 'Wow, how do we stretch this and make it really work?' We needed to deliver that to consumers. They asked us for uncompromised true 4K in the living room. And so we leveraged a lot of PC technology, from the cooling, the power management system that's in this, to get it this small — while managing acoustics. That was the goal."

That seems a bit flimsy, since PlayStation 4 Pro is currently priced at $399 and delivers 4K visuals for a number of its games. But, to each their own, we suppose.

We'll see how the Xbox One X fares when it releases later this year.