Nine hundred dollars is, according to reports, the figure Microsoft has attached to a translucent green Xbox — a price that would crown the anniversary machine the most expensive Xbox ever sold.
The console at the center of it all is the Xbox Series X25, the 25th-anniversary special edition Microsoft unveiled back in June at the Xbox Games Showcase. The reveal conveniently left out the two things everyone wanted to know: the price and the release date.
What the leak says
That price surfaced Friday courtesy of Dealabs’ billbil-kun, and it’s a big one. Sources cited by the leaker peg the Series X25 at 899.99 euros, with an estimated $899.99 in the U.S.
Put against the standard Xbox Series X — now $799.99 following yet another increase — that’s a $100 premium. It also lines the X25 up dead even with a PlayStation 5 Pro after Sony’s March price hikes.
Billbil-kun’s track record is a strong one, which is part of why this particular rumor lands harder than most.
Black Friday, of all days
The same report pins the Series X25 launch to Nov. 27 — Black Friday, a day whose entire reason for existing is discounts. Quite a choice.
There’s still no word on when preorders go live.
The controller is the good part
Bundled with the anniversary console is a special edition green controller, which Microsoft plans to sell on its own as well. Billbil-kun has previously pegged that pad at $79.99.
The ABXY buttons borrow the original Xbox controller’s colors, and the bumpers are split — one white, one black — nodding to the black and white buttons of the old pad. They’re minor flourishes, but ones that only really register if you were around for the original.
Microsoft’s pitch
“The Xbox Series X25 Limited Edition respects our history, with the power and performance of the Xbox Series X, including 1 TB of storage, and a design that reflects where we’ve been and the community that’s been with us along the way,” Microsoft said in a news release in June.
Go back over that sentence and notice the omission. Identical power, identical performance, the same 1 TB of storage you get in a Series X. What the extra $100 buys you is the ability to see inside it.
Project Helix, for the record, is something else entirely — a conversation for another day.
A see-through green box, a two-tone controller, and a $899.99 price tag arriving on the biggest sale day of the year.