Xbox Development Kits Price Hike Is Yet Another Weird Microsoft Move – WGB

Microsoft continues to make baffling decisions that feel like they are designed to kill the Xbox brand. This time they’ve opted to ramp up the price of Xbox development kits by a substantial 33% percent.

Tom Warren at The Verge broke the news, reporting that he was shown a Microsoft announcement given to developers. According to the memo, the price of Xbox development kits is immediately rising from $1500 to $2000. The memo cites “macroeconomics” as the cause, the very same reason Microsoft gave when bumping up the RRP of its consumer consoles last month for the second time this year.

But while raising the price of the console for consumers makes at least some sense – even if it still sucks for everyone – this decision is completely insane, in my opinion. Xbox is already in a position where many developers are opting to skip porting their games to the console entirely because sales are so low, and even reportedly because the Series S is tricky to develop for. By increasing the dev kit prices, Microsoft are now encouraging even fewer people to actively develop for their console. As a company with frankly cartoon-levels of cash, this is one area where Microsoft can and absolutely should be absorbing losses on development kits, because they are an investment into the brand’s future.

Notably, the 33% price hike correlates to the ongoing tariffs that America has, the very same ones that played a huge role in the consumer consoles becoming more expensive as well. There are, of course, plenty of other factors, too, like currency fluctuations, production costs and about a million other things.

The price increase is not just for the US, either, as The Verge believes it’s global.

All of this adds up to one simple question: why should developers support Xbox? Game Pass is already a divisive topic among developers and sales of the Xbox Series S/X continue to be weak. Now, Microsoft wants developers to shell out 33% more cash for a development kit, too?

And let’s not forget that Microsoft just increased the price of its best Game Pass tier by a whopping 50% last week, another major blow in the Xbox brand’s already struggling reputation.

At this point, I kinda have to ask, is Microsoft trying to kill off Xbox while milking its remaining users? Probably not. But man, it sure does feel like it.