Well, here it is. A few months after Xbox boss Phil Spencer warned us all of potential price increases across the Xbox division, the company's current-gen consoles are officially going up in price in Japan.
Revealed by Japanese outlet Famitsu, both Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S console prices are increasing by 5,000 yen in the region, or about $40 US. Interestingly, both consoles are seeing the same price jump, which means Xbox Series S is getting the bigger percentage increase here.
The RRP leap takes effect on February 17th in Japan, so from that date onwards, current-gen Xbox consoles are going to cost a fair amount more for Japanese Xbox fans.
Alongside the price increase announcement, Xbox Japan put out a statement detailing why the change was considered necessary (translated by Gematsu):
"After carefully evaluating the market condition in Japan, we have decided to change the suggested retail price of Xbox consoles in the country. We regularly evaluate the impact of local pricing to maintain reasonable consistency across regions. This price revision affects our customers and was a difficult decision to make, but going forward we will continue to provide the ultimate Xbox experience that our customers expect."
For now, Microsoft hasn't announced any console price hikes across the US and Europe, although the cost of upcoming Xbox first-party titles has been raised to ÂŁ70 / $70, as evidenced by Redfall's pre-orders which went live last week.