Where Are Xbox Consoles Made And Who Makes Them For Microsoft?

Japan has long been known for its pioneering game consoles, including five generations of PlayStation, several of Sega, and of course, Nintendo. However, since 2001, the U.S. has been able to boast that it, too, makes one of the most popular consoles of all time — the Xbox. Xbox is a product of Microsoft, the same American company founded in Seattle by Bill Gates and Paul Allen that introduced MS-DOS and Windows to the world. As with many other tech companies, many of the hardware components Microsoft sells are manufactured overseas to reduce costs, which includes the Xbox.

Microsoft doesn't explicitly say where the current generation of consoles — Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S — are made, so it's difficult to say exactly where an Xbox console is made. However, it's believed that China likely makes most components of the Xbox Series X/S, if not all of them. Many accessories and their components, such as controllers, are also known to be manufactured in Chinese facilities.

This is likely why Xbox prices recently increased, as the Trump administration's tariffs began impacting tech purchases across the industry. Microsoft hasn't explicitly attributed the price hike to tariffs, but considering the timing, it's easy to connect the dots, which also further confirms Xbox consoles are made in China. Last year, Microsoft announced that it's investing billions in Wisconsin. However, this will unlikely affect Xbox production, as this new focus in the Rust Belt is on AI and developing Copilot to be more useful than ChatGPT and other competitors.

The Xbox Series X/S isn't the first Microsoft game console to be made in China. The Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox One S were also produced in Chinese factories, including Shanghai, as part of a partnership between Microsoft and BesTV. Even earlier, Microsoft built a factory in Doumen, China, to make units of the original Xbox. This was done in partnership with Flextronics (or Flex), a multinational company originally founded in the U.S. that has been making components for Silicon Valley since the 1960s.

Before relocating to Doumen in 2002, Microsoft and Flextronics manufactured the original Xbox in Sárvár and Zalaegerszeg, which are both located in Hungary. If you've ever wondered how much your original Xbox is currently worth, one factor may be whether it was made in Europe or not, as this would indicate it was one of the very first to be made.

Flex has its headquarters in Austin, Texas, where it also has a large manufacturing plant where units of both the Xbox 360 and Xbox One have been assembled. It owned another North American factory that made Xbox consoles, but this one was farther south than the Texas facility, located in Guadalajara, Mexico. This plant produced the Xbox 360 E and Xbox One X and, like the Austin location, also handled final assembly for Microsoft, as well as packaging.