Former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra has openly criticized Microsoft’s recent decision to raise the price of Xbox consoles in the US, arguing that “console price increases are not tariff issues, they are profit issues.”
Microsoft announced the hike last week, attributing it to “changes in the macroeconomic environment,” though the company did not specifically mention tariffs.
Ybarra — who stepped down as corporate vice president of Microsoft’s gaming division in 2019 — pushed back against that assumption on social media, stating: “The reason why profits are not where they should be is a far, far deeper issue versus the tariff excuse.”
He later clarified that while the previous increase in May was justified by higher tariffs at the time, this latest rise has no such basis.
“An excuse to continue raising prices, with no new increase in tariffs, is simply a different problem,” Ybarra argued. “And they are going to make consumers continue to pay for those problems.”