On Thursday, Microsoft announced it had jacked up the prices on its game products, raising the price of its flagship Xbox console by $100—or 20%—to $600. It was an extraordinary move: Five-year-old consoles like the current generation of Xboxes almost always see price cuts, not increases.

To anyone even dimly aware of economic news, it was fairly obvious Microsoft's Xbox changes were a reaction to the Trump administration's tariffs on electronics manufactured overseas. But that wasn't clear from the company's anodyne explanation for the change, which said the increase was prompted by "market conditions and the rising cost of development."