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2nd-hand Xbox sales boom as Microsoft hike console costs by 43% due to AI demand

The computer firm has increased the price of Xbox consoles worldwide, citing rising memory and storage chip costs, resulting in the Series X console now costing 670

[Xbox prices are going up again]

Xbox prices are going up again(Image: AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Second-hand sales sites are seeing a boom in Xbox console demands after Microsoft upped the price of its gaming machines by a whopping 43%.

The computer firm has increased the price of Xbox consoles worldwide, citing rising memory and storage chip costs.

And it is really biting in the UK in particular, with a baseline Xbox Series S console now costing 430 - a roughly 43% increase on its previous 300 price tag.

Its premium Series X console with a disc drive will now cost 670, when it previously retailed for 500.

As a result sites like Gumtree are seeing a surge of interest in folk seeking to buy a second-hand machine from gamers ready to offload their devices on the cheap.

Nav Dhillon, CEO at Gumtree, said: The latest Xbox price increases have prompted an immediate response from cost-conscious gamers.

[Halo: Campaign Evolved is one of the latest titles on Xbox]

Halo: Campaign Evolved is one of the latest titles on Xbox(Image: GAME)

In the first four days of August alone, we saw more than 12,000 searches for Xbox consoles on Gumtree, as buyers looked for ways to avoid the significantly higher cost of buying new.

With some new Xbox models now costing up to 170 more, compared with a median secondhand listing price of around 100 on Gumtree, the potential savings are substantial.

It reflects a broader change in how people approach big-ticket technology: buying second hand is no longer seen as a compromise, but as a smart and increasingly mainstream way to access the products they want for less.

Xbox is among a host of tech firms to have told consumers that spiralling component costs mean they must charge more.

Rival Sony hiked PlayStation 5 prices by 90 in March.

Microsoft said in June it had hoped another price increase would not be necessary, but blamed the rising cost of console storage and memory for needing to raise prices on consumers.

Those components are going up because of global demand to build new AI data centres that require lots of chips to run.

As well as Sony increasing PlayStation prices, Steam Machine maker Valve launched its PC-console hybrid at a much higher cost than expected.

[GTA6 is on its way this winter]

GTA6 is on its way this winter(Image: Rockstar Games)

Both likewise pointed to mounting costs for the hardware and storage components needed to power their devices.

Once a cheap part used to provide computers and a range of gadgets with short-term memory, random-access memory (RAM) has shot up in price due, in part, to demand from AI.

Prices for graphics cards, a key component of consoles and gaming PCs, have also gone up because of their use in generating artificial intelligence content.

Some fear console prices - which have essentially been raised across the board in recent months - could go higher still.

This aint even the ceiling, wrote external Windows Central editor Jez Corden on X.

Amazons gaming boss recently said increasing hardware costs may lead more people to ditch consoles and stream games instead.

It all comes ahead of this winters release of what will almost certainly be the biggest gaming title release of all time, Grand Theft Auto 6.

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