Microsoft and Apple announced price hikes for many of their products this past week, meaning you’ll be paying a lot more for Xbox consoles, iPads, and Mac computers in the coming months. Unfortunately, comments from many Big Tech companies suggest that the problem is only getting worse, not better.
Our first indication of this was in the messaging both Xbox and Apple gave alongside their respective price hikes. Microsoft stated that “console storage and memory prices have increased by more than 2.5x and we expect another doubling by the fall of 2027.” Meanwhile, Apple told MacRumors the following: “The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage. We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly.”
Essentially, there is a wild increase in demand for the components that game consoles, tablets, and computers share with the data centers that companies use to power AI. Because companies like Microsoft and Apple are paying more to make each unit of their product, those cost increases have, in turn, made their way into retail pricing. And sadly, many companies don’t think this is a temporary, 2026-specific issue.
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