Xbox Users Receive Emails Encouraging Them To Sell Their Consoles

Xbox Is Trying To Convince Select Users To Sell Their Consoles For Some Reason Xbox Published Oct 20, 2026, 5:39 AM EDT Josh Coulson is an editor at TheGamer covering breaking news on everything from colorful platformers to the latest Lego sets. Primarily a news writer since 2018, Josh has covered just about every major game from the past decade. Now an editor, their focus has shifted to being the leading affiliate expert at the site, building relationships between TheGamer and global brands including Mattel, Funko, and The Pokemon Company. Sign in to your TheGamer account Xbox has been executing some dubious strategies this generation. Strategies that have resulted in studio closures and thousands of people losing their jobs. That’s why it’s really saying something when its boldest strategy so far has just reared its head - emails to its users suggesting they sell their Xbox consoles. Xbox Suggests Series X Owners Sell Their Consoles Nintendeal shared screenshots of the email and the replies, along with a separate thread on ResetEra, suggest they aren’t the only one who received it. The email notes that the player hasn’t used their Xbox in a while, and suggests that they sell it, citing how much money they might be able to get for trading it in at Best Buy. The email does assume that perhaps the player is simply playing Xbox games on their PC when, in reality, most leaving their Series X to gather dust probably aren’t playing Xbox games at all. The email claims the recipient could get as much as $375 for their console at Best Buy. Whether that’s a good deal or not is being hotly debated in the post’s replies. Those consoles will be refurbished and resold at Best Buy, and right now, a refurbished Series X costs $729.99. That’s quite the markup, and more than it cost to buy a brand new one at launch six years ago - significantly more - which might be one of the reasons why Xbox is suddenly not only okay with people ditching their consoles, but actively encouraging it. Why Xbox Is Encouraging You To Sell Your Series X Rockstar Xbox presumably gets a cut of the $730 refurbished consoles are sold for. That means it’s technically getting paid again for a console it already sold. Not only getting paid again, but probably getting close to, if not more than, what it got when it sold the console originally due to how much the price of its Series consoles have risen thanks to the ongoing RAM shortage. That shortage is the more likely leading reason why Xbox has taken an unexpected step to get unused consoles out of your homes and back on the shelves. The RAM shortage doesn’t just mean consoles are more expensive - it also means Xbox can’t make as many of them. Series Xs might be out of stock, or close to it, in a lot of stores. So, with fewer than ever being manufactured because of the rising costs associated with making that happen, the only way to get consoles back on shelves without spending a fortune is to get those who bought them originally, but no longer use them, to sell them back. Xbox will always want its console to be available, but it’s no coincidence that they want that right now more than it ever has before. GTA 6 is less than a month away. People who haven’t wanted a current-gen console until now are in stores looking for them. Most will choose a PS5. Xbox can change that by ensuring its consoles are readily available where PS5s may not be. This email blast convincing lapsed users to sell their consoles feels very much like a cost-effective way to get more consoles in stores so as many people as possible are playing GTA 6 on Xbox instead of PS5 when it launches on November 19. Brand Microsoft Original Release Date November 10, 2020 Original MSRP (USD) $499 / £449.99 / ¥54,978 Operating System Proprietary (Windows-based) Processor Custom AMD 8-core Zen 2 3.8 GHz Resolution 720p - 4K UHD