PS5 and Xbox Series Sales Have Slowed Following Price Increases in the US - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 17 May 2026 / 4,533 Views
Senior Director and Video Game Industry Advisor at Circana Mat Piscatella in a social media post in what is not a big surprise revealed sales for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S have slowed down in the US following the recent price increases.
"Certainly at risk of doing so," said Piscatella in a response to an article from GameSpot saying game consoles are pricing themselves out of relevance.
"Already seen sales slowdowns across both XBS and PS5 following price increases, and Nintendo has signaled it expects the same for Switch 2 this fall. I imagine the June hardware results will shock a lot of people."
He added, "Given general price increases across the board, and now the fuel/oil shock, I'm certainly expecting folks to choose existing options they have and lower barrier to entry ways of playing more often than they would have before."
Sony increased the price of the PS5 in most of the world on April 2 of this year to $600 / €600 / £520 for the PS5 Digital Edition, $650 / €650 / £570 for the PS5 with disc drive, and $900 / €900 / £790 for the PS5 Pro. The price would also increase on May 1 in South Korea and Southeast Asia.
Microsoft increased the price of the Xbox Series X|S once worldwide last year and twice in the US. The Xbox Series X is now priced at $600 / €550 / £450 for the Digital Edition and $650 / €600 / £500 for the model with a disc drive, while the Xbox Series S is priced at $400 / €350 / £300 for the 512 GB model and $450 / €400 / £350 for the 1 TB model.
Nintendo announced earlier this month the price of the Switch 2, Switch, and Switch Online will increase in Japan on May 25, while the Switch 2 will increase worldwide on September 1. The Switch 2 will be increasing to $500 / €500 /59,980 yen.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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Thanks, data centres and billionaires. They're ruining everything.
I fear these price increases could have a very negative impact on the future of the industry. It's becoming increasingly difficult for people to take up gaming as a hobby. Families with young kids are going to have a hard time spending 500+ on a new console for there children.
And remember, the 3DS launched at $250, and that was considered rather steep, to the point where Nintendo reduced the price a few months later. The Vita launched at $300 and sold at a loss which Sony tried to make up for by selling proprietary storage at a rather stiff markup.
Remember when we all used to make predictions on when consoles would get their 1st, 2nd or 3rd price cut and who would do it first?
Kids of the future will never believe that consoles used to go down in price the longer they were out.
Y’know, I didn’t jump into gaming until Switch released in March 2017. So all I’ve ever seen is price increases, though I always remember people talking about “When will Nintendo Selects drop?” back during the first few years of Switch.
PS2 launched at $299.99. Three years later, it was $179.99. Games were $49.99 and were 100% complete, without the need for patches, installs or updates, and DLC was all on-disc and delivered by way of in-game unlockables. In short? We had it made lol
I remember buying a new fighting game, and spending the whole weekend or week doing all the challenges in order to unlock all the extra hidden characters. Or what is now an extra £20 special edition + 10 more DLC characters for £5-10 each
Some games needed patches but did not have the method to do so without reprinting the game. Tomb Raider Dark Angel was broken. All Midway Dreamcast launch games had a awful sound glitch. They reprinted the games with a fake sticker on it saying HOT NEW lol. I do miss that era tho. We did get more complete games you're right. Hell everyone was allowed to make an NFL or MLB game. We had create a teams. I miss that. Not to mention budget games at 20 bucks! NFL2k5 was sold new at 20! 2006 was a great time to get into PS2. Walk in a Gamestop get a new PS2 for $80 and a wall of used games from 5 bucks to new games. Awesome era!
Software prices have admittedly gotten better than since those days. Just glance at Steam prices (and how far emulation has advanced since then— you can easily run whatever Switch 1 game on your PC free of charge for instance, disregarding ethics).
I practically never use steam. Mainly prefer physical anyway. People buy a ton of shit on Steam but never play them. Far cry from us 80s kids who got 1 maybe 2 games in a year. Granted they were expensive as hell but we played that game over and over to get good at it. Games were difficult which is not a brag or saying it was better. Just how it was as devs had a arcade mindset. I prefer games be more accessible tbh(point to modern gaming there). But there was no choice paralysis. Now here I am with over 1100 physical games and when a mood strikes I sit frozen staring at a shelf for minutes at a time lol
What was also great about this era is that car manufacturers didn't care about video games so they would just licence them out for free money so you can do all the crazy customisations you wanted like in the old need for speed games.
Now they realise it's a thing and they care so much about their brand image they don't let devs allow you to change the cars in any meaningful ways because their designs are "perfect", so lame.
Damn, you are young!!
I can remember a time when computers with 4K of memory launched at $500-600 price. The Atari 400 with 4K of RAM launched at $600, and that was in 1979 dollars, not 2026 Uncle Donnie fun bucks.. My family bought the Atari 130XE with 128K of RAM for $120 a few years later.
My parents bought me my first console in 1987. The NES. It came with controllers. The power pad. The grey zapper. The console and 3 games in one cart. Mario Bros. Track n Field and Duck Hunt. $179. When N64 released and only came with 1 controller and no game I thought it was a ripoff.
Damn so unexpected.
Anyway I think Xbox and Playstation are relocating some resources for hardware of the next generation so they can have enough supply for their respective launches.
You would expect with
- the new cod skipping PS4
- GTA VI on it's way
- Black friday deals
- Wolverine
And so much more that expected sales would increase not decrease, they maybe don't have the possibility to ship a lot soon.
The prices are just too high. Over here in the usa, the economy and job market are so bad right now that gaming is quickly becoming an untennable hobby.
In other news, gravity causes things to fall.
Not surprised, honestly.
It's always the criminal theft tax evasion billionaires and corrupt corps ruining everything!
Simple solution : hang them and then none of this bullshit would've happened
Sucks! But expected.
Better buy them quick before they go up in price again.
I bought Switch 2 at launch. I bought PS5 when it was on sale a couple of Christmases ago.
Shocked pikachu face
