Microsoft slashed the price of its premium Xbox One X game console by $100 to $299 on Wednesday, most likely to begin clearing shelves in anticipation of the Xbox Series X debut this holiday season. And did we mention you get a game, too?
The cuts mean that, at least for now, the $299 Xbox One X is priced identically to the $299 Xbox One S bundles, at least on Microsoft’s site. Microsoft also lowered the price of its Xbox All Access financing program for the Xbox One X to $24.99 from $35 per month.
In fact, Microsoft isn’t pushing the Xbox One X as a standalone console at all, as the option to buy just a standalone Xbox One X seems to have vanished from Microsoft’s online store. (The Xbox One S All-Digital Edition, which lacks a Blu-ray drive, is still priced and available at $249.) In its place, there are six Xbox One X bundles from which to choose:
- Xbox One X Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Bundle (1TB)
- Xbox One X Gears 5 Limited Edition Bundle (1TB)
- Xbox One X Gears 5 Bundle (1TB)
- Xbox One X NBA 2K20 Bundle (1TB)
- Xbox One X NBA 2K20 Special Edition bundle (1TB)
- Xbox One X Forza Horizon 4 LEGO Speed Champions bundle (1TB)
Note that while the “Limited Edition” Gears 5 bundle and “Special Edition” NBA 2K20 bundle are identical in terms of content, the hardware slightly differs: the NBA 2K20 Special Edition bundle replaces the standard Xbox One X with a special, customized “Hyperspace” design, although with a generic Xbox wireless controller.
Microsoft
Microsoft only lists a handful of Xbox One X bundles, but they’re solid deals.
The “Limited Edition” Gears 5 bundle replaces the Xbox One X, the controller, and the game with cosmetic and content upgrades. Only the Limited Edition Gears 5 Xbox One X console includes its “cracked ice” skin, and the controller has been replaced by the Kait Diaz Limited Edition. The game itself is also the Gears 5 Ultimate Edition, an upgrade over the base Gears 5 game that the more generic Gears 5 Bundle console includes.
There’s another quirk that you might care about: All the bundles listed here, with the exception of the Speed Champions and NBA 2K20 Special Edition, are available for financing via the Xbox All Access plan. That means that for $24.99 per month for 24 months (or $599.76), you’ll receive the console and Game Pass Ultimate, Microsoft’s gaming subscription for both the Xbox and PC. Game Plass Ultimate costs $14.99 per month or $359.76, which would seem to lower the console cost even further, to $240.
One final note: A quick check of the purchase pages reveals that GameStop might be offering some of these bundles, too—although they were listed as “out of stock” on the models we checked. We’d doubt that the more generic versions of the bundles will be in short supply. But for the limited-edition models, we’d suggest that you act fast.