Three things in life are inevitable: death, taxes and price increases. Although the last one comes with a warning, once.
A few weeks ago, Microsoft announced that the base price of its retail Xbox Games was frankly hitting $80, an incredibly difficult year for consumers and businesses in terms of spiral costs. Whether it is supply chains affected by arbitrary trade wars or affected by sticky inflation due to quantitative quantitative easing, markets have been relatively unstable in the past few years for a variety of reasons.
In response, the prices of various businesses are priced to varying degrees. Both Microsoft and Sony have increased the price of their Xbox and PlayStation hardware bundles over the past few years, and for a short while, the industry seems ready to raise the base price of its mainline games to $80. It started with Nintendo's Mario Kart World retailing for $79.99, then back and forth when Borderlands 4 also hit $79.99, and ended up being $69.99.
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Then, Microsoft announced that the upcoming Xbox game will also target $79.99 from FPS Space Odyssey The Outer Worlds 2. That is until today.
External World 2 – Official Game Trailer – YouTube
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Announced across Xbox social channels Microsoft and Obsidian reveal that External World 2 will no longer be $79.99return to the current industry standard $69.99.
“We focus on making players incredible world exploration and have released our fully priced holidays, including Outer Worlds 2 at $69.99 – in line with current market conditions,” said Dr. An Xbox spokesperson explained in a statement to Windows Central.
If you have booked Outer World 2 for $79.99, you must get a refund at the purchase point if you have paid. Microsoft said some retailers will refund money today, but some will start accepting tomorrow's refunds. You can then book again at the new $69.99 price rating.
Absolutely correct call
Outer World 2 is an FPS with heavy RPG elements located in a lawless border space. (Photo source: Xbox Game Studios)
As good as the appearance of Outer World 2, I think $79.99 will be a tough pill for gamers who are already dealing with rising costs elsewhere, who are also increasingly looking to play games for free to offset the rising cost of living.
Cynically, the attempt to think the $79.99 price is a push to the Xbox Game Pass isn't a big choice, which will represent a lot of savings for those who want to play Obsidian's new Sci-Fi Epic. Survivability around Xbox Game Pass as a business model has already been problematic, especially for replacing sales metrics for internal studios.
In any case, in a world, everything seems to be getting more expensive without signs of stopping, which is a rare victory for consumers. Part of me wondered if Microsoft did some sort of analysis of the upcoming Call of Duty Black Ops 7, which is $79.99 sales, and thought they didn't like what they saw…
Xbox Series X | S, PC and PS5's “Outside 2” was also launched on October 29, 2025 and is also used for Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming.
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