'Funflation' Hits Home: Even Staying In Is Getting Expensive

For a long time, staying home was the cheap way to have fun. Watch a movie, play a video game, save money. But that's changing fast — and it's costing everyone more.

The word people are using is "funflation" — a mix of "fun" and "inflation" (inflation means prices rising over time). It started with expensive concert and sports tickets after the pandemic. Now it's spreading into your living room, hitting streaming services, video games, and electronics.

What's getting more expensive?

• Video game consoles: Microsoft's Xbox and Apple both raised prices in June 2026. Nintendo raised the price of its Switch 2 by 11% in the U.S.
• Streaming services: Netflix, Amazon, Spotify, Disney, and Warner Bros. Discovery all raised subscription prices this year — a trend nicknamed "streamflation."
• Electricity: Power prices have jumped 45% since 2019, partly due to the wars in Ukraine and Iran affecting energy supplies.

Why is this happening? Companies blame a shortage of memory chips (tiny parts inside phones, computers, and consoles). Artificial intelligence (AI) technology needs huge amounts of these chips, so they've become scarce and pricey. That makes the final products cost more too.

The effect is real. Data from PNC Financial Services showed that in June 2026, people spent less on home entertainment than a year earlier. Younger shoppers (Gen Z and Millennials) cut their spending by about 4%.

Some shoppers, like Illinois student Alyx Green, are finding workarounds — buying cheaper games from smaller studios, playing board games, or even just watching others play games on YouTube instead of buying them.

Even Xbox's CEO admitted gaming is becoming "unaffordable" and said the company will focus on cheaper hardware. Microsoft also announced layoffs in its Xbox division.

The bottom line: For years, electronics slowly got cheaper as factories got more efficient. That trend is now reversing. Whether you go out or stay in, having fun is simply getting more expensive.

This is an AI-generated summary. Read the original article at: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/11/funflation-streaming-video-games-xbox-apple-disney-netflix.html