A new PS5 and Xbox Series X price increase is reportedly coming soon. Over the course of a console generation, video game consoles are supposed to get cheaper as the generation progresses, thanks to revisions and thanks to their components aging, getting less expensive over time. Obviously, this has not happened this generation. The opposite has happened. The PS5 and Xbox Series X have both had more than one price increase. There are a few circumstances contributing to this, but the chief one is massive component shortages, and, in particular, RAM and storage shortages. Unfortunately, both of these are going to get worse, which means more price increases are coming.
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Jefferies Equity Research has published a new report, and in this report, they note that memory prices are expected to increase again, and then again, and then again, and all will be substantial increases. More specifically, a 40-50% price increase is expected for memory in Q3 2026, and then another 30-40% in Q4 2026. In 2027, another 40-45% increase is expected. It’s anticipated that prices won’t stabilize until 2028. That said, right now, there is no expectation in the foreseeable future for prices to go back down to what they were before the AI market drove memory prices mad.
PS5 and Xbox Series X BOM
Another recent report mentions that over the last few months, the BOM — bill of materials — of the PS6 rose $200 because of RAM and storage price increases. As a result, it’s expected that the PS6 will cost roughly $1000. If this increase is any indicator, then the PS5 and Xbox Series X are going to increase in price, again, before the end of the year if the aforementioned QoQ increases happen, and there’s no reason to doubt they will happen, as that is what we are currently trending towards. In fact, it looks like we will get a price increase for both before the end of the year, likely before the holiday season, and then again in the first half of 2027. The Xbox Series X does have one extra increase so far, and is an extra $100, so it could bide more time than the PS5 and have one less increase in the pipeline.
Of course, Sony and Microsoft could eat the costs and not pass them onto the consumer, but given that both have increased their console prices more than once already, there’s no reason to expect either to do this. They may have to rethink this strategy, though, because both had a disastrous May 2026 in terms of console sales.
The problem with selling consoles at a significant loss is that it gets out of hand very quickly. Losing $100 on every console sold may not seem like a lot, but across 5 million consoles sold, that’s $500 million. 10 million consoles sold, that is $1 billion. While PlayStation and Xbox have sold consoles at a loss in the past, the margins are typically very small, and it’s with the expectation that this will change quickly. Now, the expectation is that the BOM is going to increase over time, making this strategy not sustainable.
All of that said, and as always, feel free to leave a comment or two letting us know what you think, or join the video game conversations happening over on the ComicBook Forum.
