Microsoft shared new details about its plans for Xbox hardware, teasing the next generation of Xbox consoles and providing updates about its gaming business in a special edition of the Official Xbox Podcast Thursday. While the company confirmed that four Xbox-exclusive games would launch on PS5 and Nintendo Switch, it reiterated its commitment to developing Xbox hardware and exclusives titles on the platform. In the podcast, Xbox president Sarah Bond said that Microsoft was focussed on delivering the “largest technical leap” for a new console generation for the next Xbox.
Bond also confirmed that fans could expect new Xbox hardware later this year in the holiday season — likely to be the rumoured mid-generation refresh of the Xbox Series S/X consoles. “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,” the Xbox president said. “And what we’re really focussed on there is delivering the largest technical leap you will have seen in a hardware generation,” she added.
Xbox currently offers the Xbox Series X, its flagship current-generation console, along with the lower-end, digital-only Xbox Series S.
Back in September last year, leaked court documents from the Federal Trade Commission antitrust trial over Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard had revealed that the company was planning a mid-gen refresh for its Xbox Series X and Series S consoles sometime in 2024. The documents also included concept images of upcoming Xbox hardware, along with the platform’s roadmap for future releases.
According to the leaked concept images, Microsoft’s mid-gen refresh of the Xbox Series X is codenamed ‘Brooklin,’ an all-digital console that boasts the same peformance and features as the original one, except for the optical disc drive. The console appears to have a cylindrical design and an upgraded 2TB storage and will likely maintain the Series X’s pricing — $499, or Rs. 54,990. The leaked documents had claimed that ‘Brooklin’ would release sometime in October 2024. In addition to the console, Xbox also plans to launch an upgraded controller with gyro, haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, just like PlayStation’s DualSense controller.
In the podcast, where Bond was joined by Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer and Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty, the Xbox president did not disclose a launch window for the next generation of Xbox consoles, but Microsoft expects the next-gen Xbox and PS6 to launch in 2028, as also revealed by court documents from the FTC trial in June last year. “This term would, in any case, go beyond the expected starting period of the next generation of consoles (in 2028),” the company had said in the documents. The current generation of consoles — Xbox Series S/X and PS5 — was launched in 2020.