The last 10-days-or-so have been quite the roller coaster for Xbox fans. Team Green was thrown into turmoil earlier this month by rumors that everything from Starfield, to Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, to even Gears of War may be going multiplatform. Granted, some of those rumors were later walked back, but still, the spectre of a third-party future with Xbox getting out of the hardware business was raised.
Thankfully, today Xbox leadership Phil Spencer, Matt Booty, and Sarah Bond stepped up to provide some clarification on the latest episode of the Official Xbox Podcast. The good news, is that Microsoft confirmed their commitment to Xbox hardware, but that’s said, it’s not longer going to be the company’s core focus with Microsoft vowing to bring their platform to as many different screens as possible. Before we get deeper into the details, you can check out the business update for yourself, below.
Current Xbox president Sarah Bond assured fans that Xbox hardware isn’t going anywhere, and will still provide the “flagship, seminal” Xbox experience. She went on to tease they’re going to share “exciting stuff” regarding hardware this holiday – perhaps the leaked all-digital Xbox Series X revision – and that they’re working on the next-gen Xbox which will deliver the “largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation.”
“When we look at our hardware, it really is […] where you get the most flagship, seminal experience of Xbox. And it also represents a developer target. Our developers can build to the specs of our hardware, and we invest to make sure when they do that the game are going to run great on our hardware, but they’re also going to be able to be accessed across any screen because of the all the other investments that we make.
And we’ve got more to come. There’s some exciting stuff coming out in hardware that we’re going to share this holiday, and we’re also invested in the next-generation roadmap. And what we’re really focused on there is delivering the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation, which makes it better for players and for creators and the visions that they’re building.”
Well, okay then! This kind of flies in the face of recent predictions future consoles would have smaller performance gains, but I suppose it’s best the get the info from the horse’s mouth. Following Bond’s statement, Phil Spencer went on to emphasize the importance of backward compatibility and bringing players’ libraries forward, which he implied will be a feature of the next Xbox. In a separate interview with The Verge, Spencer also said he’d like future hardware to offer more unique features, although he wouldn’t confirm anything specific, like say, an Xbox handheld, when asked directly.
“[We’re] really thinking about creating hardware that sells to gamers because of the unique aspects of the hardware. It’s kind of an unleashing of the creative capability of our hardware team that I’m really excited about.”
Now that the dust has settled and we actually know what Microsoft’s plans are, what do you think about the future of Xbox? Are you optimistic about future hardware?
