OPINION: No matter where you turn, price rises are an inescapable fact of life in 2025, affecting everything from food to petrol, energy rates and more, but the ones that constantly have my head spinning are those plaguing the tech industry.
One of the biggest tech stories last week (outside of the delay of a certain behemoth game) was the staggering price increases from Microsoft across both Xbox consoles and their accessories. They range from acceptable ($10 more for the official Xbox headset) to the downright insulting ($100 more for the Xbox Series X).
It’s the first console generation in memory where companies haven’t deployed the anticipated price cuts that come with a few years of being on store shelves, far from it. We’ve now seen several increases from both Microsoft and Sony in the last few years, which is unfathomable when you consider that we’re not that far away from next-generation consoles hitting the scene.
It’s not just gaming that’s affected however, so I think it’s worth taking a step back, looking at the ground that’s been lost in the last few years across the tech industry, and trying to understand what the long term implications are of these price rises – because I’m convinced that the companies behind them aren’t looking at the wider problem.
What has happened and how did we get here?
To not have some idea of how we got into this current predicament would have required an impressive amount of burying one’s head in the sand. Over the last few years, it’s been the awful mix of the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, rising inflation and recent shocks from tariffs that have had a global knock-on effect.
As folks will remember when the pandemic affected supply chains worldwide, it became more difficult to get your hands on the latest devices, and while those issues have largely softened, we have seen price increases off the back of it not just for new products, but for existing tech.
At this point it feels as though we hear about an increase to Netflix’s subscription costs every six months, which in turn has had a knock on effect with other streaming services including Disney Plus and Apple TV Plus, alongside music services like Spotify.
You may have already forgotten but Sonos bumped the price of several products back in 2021, with the most eye-watering increase being a £149 addition to the existing cost of the Sonos Sub Gen 3.
In terms of new devices, the price of entry-level Pixel phones has steadily gone up, with the Pixel 7 costing £599 at launch – a noticeable difference compared to the £799 asking price of the Pixel 9.
More recently, Nintendo made headlines by finally breaching the current standard price ceiling for first-party video games, with physical copies of Mario Kart World priced at £75/$80.
What happens next?
The problem with all of these price increases is that wages aren’t rising at a steady enough pace to meet them and at some point, the bottom is going to fall out in a big way. Sure, it might be nice to have a new phone, especially if you’ve had your current one for a few years, but it’s hardly going to take precedent if you’re finding it a struggle to afford the weekly food shop, and this is where buying habits are going to change.
Speaking for myself, I already engage with streaming services on a different level as it’s now far too costly to keep multiple subscriptions going at one time. Instead, I have my Spotify account which stays where it is because I have my playlists and favourite albums saved for easy access, but on the video front I will simply jump from one video service to another depending on what’s taking my fancy. Do you think I kept my Apple TV Plus subscription after Severance’s latest season ended? Not a chance.
Now picture that scenario on a wider scale – what if the majority of people have to cap their smartphone budget at around £500/$500? That’s great for companies in the mid-range sector like Google and Nothing, but it doesn’t bode well for Apple which firmly has its roots planted in the premium end of the market. If Apple’s solution for this is to simply charge more for its phones to reap increased revenue from its most loyal customers, as opposed to lowering the price of the iPhone 16e or bringing a genuine mid-range phone to market, then I think it’s in big trouble.
I just can’t envision a version of this story that doesn’t end with one company or another getting caught out as consumers are forced into spending less money as a result of these ongoing trends, and unless something changes, I don’t see any reprieve in sight.
