Xbox says it’s working on a ‘very premium’ next-gen console

Xbox has teased its strategy to its next-gen console.

In an interview with Mashable in regards to the lately launched ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X handhelds, Xbox president Sarah Bond was requested in regards to the firm’s broader plans for next-gen {hardware}. In fact, Bond famous that she will be able to’t say a lot proper now, however she did supply a small tease.

“The following-gen console goes to be a really premium, very high-end curated expertise,” responded Bond. “You’re beginning to see among the considering we’ve got on this handheld [the Xbox Ally devices], however I don’t wish to give all of it away.”

Bond is probably going referring to the truth that the Xbox Ally gadgets are a mixture of Asus and Home windows’ respective PC infrastructures with the combination of Xbox’s iconography and sport libraries. This hybrid strategy has knowledgeable a lot of what Microsoft has performed lately. On the Xbox finish, it’s de-emphasized the necessity for a console by deliver its video games to quite a lot of platforms, from PC and cell to cloud gaming and even PlayStation. This led it to undertake a “This is an Xbox” marketing campaign during which it refers to all types of the aforementioned gadgets as “Xboxes.”

And earlier this yr, the corporate teased that it needs to deal with bringing together the “best of Xbox and Windows” in handheld gaming PCs. The Xbox Ally gadgets, which run on Home windows 11 and have Xbox buttons, UI and sport catalogues, are one a part of this. One other of those is major partnership with AMD that Bond introduced earlier this yr  a “to co-engineer silicon throughout a portfolio of gadgets, together with our next-generation Xbox consoles.” All of that is to say that the next-gen Xbox will in all probability be extra PC-like than Microsoft’s earlier consoles.

That mentioned, this wider platform-agnostic strategy has additionally led many individuals to query the explanation to even purchase an Xbox console. Moreover Xbox {hardware} pricing having gone up twice this yr (the most recent of which didn’t affect Canada), there’s a lot much less of an incentive to get considered one of Microsoft’s consoles with a lot of what they provide being out there elsewhere.

Specifically, just about each first-party Xbox sport, like Gears of Warfare, Forza and Microsoft Flight Simulator, has made (or is making) its strategy to PlayStation. The long-rumoured Halo: Combat Evolved remake is also expected to come to PS5 as well. And whereas the non-streaming Recreation Go choices are solely out there on Xbox and PC, the ever-rising cost of the service has been pushing aside lots of people. All of this has led to gross sales of the Xbox Sequence X/S reportedly trailing those of the PS5 by tens of millions.

Given all of this, it is going to be attention-grabbing to see how many individuals will nonetheless wish to purchase a next-gen Xbox, even when it’s as “premium” as Bond suggests. In any case, Sony is clearly engaged on a PS6, and it even recently teased that it’s excited to bring that to fans “in a few years’ time.”

Within the meantime, a style of what Xbox is probably going planning for its subsequent {hardware} might be discovered within the $799 Xbox Ally and $1300 Xbox Ally X.

Supply: Mashable