Xbox Series X25 Limited Edition price could be higher than expected, according to new Microsoft memo

Brace your wallets

(Credit: Microsoft/The Shortcut)

• 💰 The price of the new Xbox Series X25 Limited Edition console could be higher than first thought

• 📈 New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has been candid about how high component and memory prices have risen in very recent times

• 😬 It’s feared this could push the X25 Limited Edition ahead of the $749 price we’d predicted

• 🤔 We already know Xbox is likely to undertake some radical business decisions to try and navigate this difficult market situation

Everyone seems to be in love with the recently announced Xbox Series X25 Limited Edition console, although a new Microsoft memo has added fuel to the fire that it might cost more than we hoped.

In a new Xbox Wire post, new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has been remarkably transparent regarding component pricing, noting that when she joined Xbox as CEO in February, “the price we paid for console storage components was over 2x as high as we paid last fall.”

If that wasn’t already bad enough, Sharma has stated that those costs have “since doubled again”, and that by the 2027 holiday season, Xbox is expecting “another significant increase, taking us over 5x the prices we paid only two years earlier”. Sharma also notes that “Memory costs have followed a broadly similar trajectory.”

This obviously puts a large spanner in the works for any future releases from Microsoft’s not least the Xbox Series X25 Limited Edition console that should be available in November 2026.

We initially predicted a $749 price tag for this limited edition Xbox Series X model based on the price of the standard 1TB Series X at $649.99 and the 2TB Galaxy Black edition at $799.99.

However, Sharma’s recent comments imply we may see an even higher price than initially predicted. The extent to which this price could increase from the potential $749 price tag is, of course, unknown, not least because Microsoft is remaining coy on an official price thus far.

Sharma has recently teased some “radically different business models” as a means of overcoming the difficult market conditions Microsoft’s gaming division finds itself in, which has brought into question the potential revival of Project Keystone, Microsoft’s abandoned cloud gaming streaming stick.

She has also previously noted that the price of the upcoming Xbox Project Helix console would be impacted by the memory crisis, so these new comments reiterate how long-term current issues are likely to be.

Up next: Xbox CEO admits Microsoft hasn’t done enough to ‘compete and win’ in candid new memo

Reece Bithrey is a journalist with bylines for Trusted Reviews, Digital Foundry, PC Gamer, TechRadar and more. He also has his own blog, UNTITLED, and graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in International History and Politics in 2023.