Xbox turns 25 on Sunday, and Microsoft is marking the occasion with a see-through green Series X25 that costs £759.99 in the UK, which got us wondering how that stacks up against the chunky black box that launched here at £299.99 back in March 2002. So we took the UK launch price of every Xbox console, ran each one through the official inflation figures to see what it would cost in today's money, and the results should make for interesting reading if you remember saving up birthday money for one.

The short version is that the original Xbox was pricier than you probably remember, the Xbox 360 was the bargain of the bunch, and the Series X25 is the most expensive Xbox ever sold here even once inflation is taken into account. The more surprising bit is what's happened to the Series X and Series S since they launched six years ago today, but we'll get to that.

How we crunched the numbers

We used the UK launch price of each console from Microsoft's own announcements and UK coverage at the time, then adjusted it using the Office for National Statistics' Consumer Prices Index (CPI), from the month each console launched to September 2026, which was the latest figure available when we ran the numbers on November 9. We've rounded to the nearest pound, and it's a rough guide rather than an exact science, as CPI tracks a whole basket of everyday shopping rather than tellies and tech, but it's the standard yardstick for this sort of thing.

The big black box that didn't stay £299.99 for long

The original Xbox arrived in the UK on March 14, 2002 at £299.99, which works out at around £583 now, and it didn't hang around at that price for very long. Sales in Europe were slower than Microsoft had hoped, so on April 18 it announced that the UK price would drop to £199 from April 26, barely six weeks after launch, and a £100 cut that quickly would set social media alight today.

Anyone who'd paid full whack wasn't left completely out in the cold, as Microsoft offered early buyers a thank-you pack, which UK coverage at the time reported as two free games and an extra controller. If you were one of those early adopters, you've more than earned the right to bring it up at every family gathering since.

The 360 was the real bargain

Fast forward to December 2, 2005, and the Xbox 360 launched here at £209.99 for the Core version and £279.99 for the model with a hard drive, which is roughly £384 and £511 in today's money. That makes the 360 the cheapest Xbox launch in real terms apart from the Series S, which feels fitting for the console a lot of UK players still think of as the Xbox (red ring of death and all).

The Xbox One went the other way when it launched in November 2013 at £429, or about £623 today, and the Xbox One X followed in 2017 at £449.99, roughly £620 now. Both were pitched as premium machines, and in real terms they sit at the top of the table until you get to this week's anniversary model.

Six years on, the Series X costs more than ever

Consoles have traditionally got cheaper as they got older, with price cuts and slimmer models turning up a few years in, but this generation has gone in the opposite direction. The Series X launched on November 10, 2020 at £449.99, which is about £595 in today's money, and after price rises in May 2025 and again on August 1, 2026, the disc version now costs £669.99, which is £220 more than it did at launch and around £75 more than its launch price adjusted for inflation.

The Series S has had an even rougher time of it, as it launched at £249.99 (about £331 now) and the 512GB model now costs £429.99, so it's gone up by £180 in six years. Here's how the current line-up compares with where it started.

So is the X25 worth £759.99?

At £759.99, the Series X25 is the most expensive Xbox ever launched in the UK, coming in about £177 above the original Xbox in today's money and £90 above a standard disc Series X. To be fair to Microsoft, you're getting a limited edition console in what it calls Translucent OG Green, with each one individually numbered, plus a download of Halo: Campaign Evolved, the remake of the original Halo campaign. It's sold while stocks last with a limit of one per customer, so it's clearly aimed at collectors rather than anyone looking for the cheapest way into Xbox, and if you just want the games, the regular Series X and Series S will play exactly the same ones.

If you're in a nostalgic mood this week, Xbox is also celebrating the anniversary with a batch of classic games joining Game Pass Essential on November 15, including Banjo-Kazooie and Perfect Dark, and Forza Horizon 6 is getting a free Master Chief outfit to mark the occasion.

Well, if you paid £299.99 for an Xbox in March 2002, we'd love to know whether you've forgiven Microsoft for that price cut yet.