In a week when we found out Sony is going to keep on producing the PS4 this year, Microsoft revealed it stopped making all Xbox One consoles back in 2020.
As The Verge reports, Cindy Walker, senior director of Xbox console product marketing, explained the decision to cease all Xbox One production in 2020 was taken, “to focus on production of Xbox Series X / S.”
Typically, there’s some overlap between a new console generation being introduced and manufacturing of the previous generation hardware ending. Clearly that wasn’t the case for the Xbox One, with production of the Xbox One S All-Digital and Xbox One X ending before the Xbox Series X|S launched in November 2020, but then Xbox One S production was also stopped within a couple of months.
Sony offers two versions of the PS5 that are exactly the same except for the Digital Edition loses the optical drive. However, Microsoft took a different approach and decided to offer a significantly cheaper, less powerful Xbox Series S console for $299. In so doing, it made sense to stop Xbox One console production completely. The Series S is able to fill the same gap in the market Sony relies on the PS4 to fill, but the Series S has the advantage of playing all the games Series X owners enjoy.
Both companies have a track record of regularly revising their console hardware and introducing updated models. Sony has already done this quietly for the PS5, and we’re bound to see a few more Xbox Series and PS5 revisions in the next couple of years. Will we get slim models? I wouldn’t bet against that happening, but not until the global chip shortage eases.
