Xbox buy now, pay later program leaks after CEO addressed Project Helix console price

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma wants to ensure that her gaming ecosystem remains affordable. The storage and memory shortage has impacted Xbox console prices and threatens Project Helix. Sharma hinted at “radically different business models” to control hardware costs. Now, evidence of buy now, pay later financing has emerged.

Better xCloud watches the cloud gaming service’s backend, which often leaks upcoming changes. The new discovery is a “Buy what you love and pay later” program. There would be several options for buyers that involve PayPal and Klarna. One choice using PayPal is to submit “4 interest-free, bi-weekly payments, or spread payments over up to 24 months.”

With Klarna, the total splits into three payments: “once at purchase and then every 30 days.” The datamine doesn’t confirm whether the buy now, pay later plans would apply to Xbox consoles, games, or anything on Microsoft’s store. Still, after the last Xbox Series X price increase raised its MSRP to $600-650, financing makes more sense for the gaming systems.

A challenging time for console gamers

Faced with dwindling sales, Sharma hopes to revive interest in the Series X, Series S, and upcoming Project Helix. Xbox exclusive games like Gears of War: E-Day could boost adoption, but don’t address hardware costs. In a recent Fortune interview, the CEO acknowledged that most consumers can’t “afford thousands of dollars to spend on a console.”

A cloud gaming-based system is one solution, since it avoids the need for large SSDs or other costly components. Even so, not all gamers are willing to sacrifice disc-based play or performance. Financing existing Xbox consoles becomes more tempting for this audience.

The latest Better xCloud leak may remind fans of the discontinued All Access program. Gamers paid for a Series X or Series S over 24 months, with a rate that included Game Pass. Regardless, the goal was more to make payments flexible than to discount console prices. Also, as with any buy now, pay later plan, irresponsible customers can quickly rack up debt.