Microsoft has decided to hike Xbox prices pretty aggressively in several markets worldwide, and at the same time, they're discontinuing the 2TB model. The official explanation points to the global component crisis, especially when it comes to memory and storage, which has been driving up production costs big time. To give you an idea, starting in August, the 512GB Xbox Series S is going up to $499, which is a pretty hefty $100 increase. Meanwhile, the 1TB versions—both the Series S and Series X—are getting hit even harder, jumping by $150. This puts the Series X with the disc drive at a heavy $799. If you think about it, these prices are getting dangerously close to the cost of building a decent gaming PC, which kind of takes away from what was always the biggest selling point for consoles: getting great performance without breaking the bank. On top of that, the company decided to pull the 2TB model from the market entirely. It looks like manufacturing this specific version with so much capacity just became financially unviable with current component costs. Instead of selling it at an absurd price that probably nobody would want to pay, they preferred to just drop it from stores for good. Honestly, this is a total bummer for anyone who was planning to buy a console in the coming months. The tech market has been weird for the last few years, and those promises that prices would stabilize after the pandemic aren't really panning out, at least not when it comes to gaming hardware. If you happen to be eyeing an Xbox and find stock at some store with the old pricing, you probably shouldn't risk it and just grab it now. Starting August 2nd, the new prices go into effect, and unless the semiconductor and memory crisis lets up, which doesn't seem likely anytime soon, these prices are here to stay. We'll just have to see how the market reacts to this and if the competition ends up following suit.