The next Xbox is going to be very different
Source: The Verge
I’ve been thinking a lot about the next Xbox lately. While Microsoft publicly lines up a busy year of game releases and ports for the PS5 and Switch 2, the company has also been secretly building its future Xbox hardware and platform. There haven’t been any giant leaks about next-gen hardware yet, but Microsoft has been dropping hints over the past year that make it clear the next Xbox is going to be a lot different from the box that exists right now.
Microsoft is developing new console hardware that Xbox president Sarah Bond has said will deliver “the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation.” We’ve heard very little about next-gen hardware since that promise a year ago, and a lot has changed since internal documents from 2022 leaked and hinted that the next Xbox could arrive in 2028.
Xbox chief Phil Spencer said in a recent interview that he wants Microsoft “to innovate and make hardware the differentiator.” Spencer told me something similar a year ago, saying that Microsoft is “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.”
That unique or innovative hardware will almost certainly include a handheld somewhere in the mix. Spencer has teased the potential for an Xbox handheld a few times over the past year, but he warned in a November Bloomberg interview that such a device is a few years away and only at the prototype stage right now.
“I love when I see handhelds, when I see unique things that hardware manufacturers do, and I want our hardware to compete on power and innovation,” Spencer said in a recent interview. He didn’t expand on how Microsoft will make next-gen hardware different from its rivals, but unique and innovative hardware does suggest that hardware form factors and key platform changes will play a big part in unlocking a different kind of Xbox.
I’m convinced we’ll see some early parts of the next-gen Xbox platform this year, too. Jason Ronald, Microsoft’s VP of Next Generation, recently revealed to The Verge that Microsoft is combining “the best of Xbox and Windows together” for handhelds. I don’t think Microsoft is embarking on such a big project without these handheld-focused platform changes being the foundation for whatever Xbox hardware comes next.
How Microsoft brings the best bits of the Xbox UI to Windows-based handhelds is still a big unanswered question. Another is how this all impacts game development and your Xbox game library. Microsoft has been trying to bridge the Xbox and PC game development gap for years, using its “GameCore” developer-focused platform changes to make it easier for game creators to build titles for both Xbox and PC.
Spencer told Polygon last year that the Xbox team was looking at opening up its platform to rival stores like Itch.io and the Epic Games Store. Such a move would make it clear Microsoft is embracing a more PC-like approach for its next Xbox, which raises the question: do developers build games for Xbox or PC, or is it just the same thing in the future?
If it’s the same thing, Microsoft also needs to ensure you can play Xbox games on PC so that existing libraries don’t get left behind. Microsoft already built an Xbox 360 emulator for the Xbox One, and I think it will do the same to bring Xbox games to PC. Last month, I wrote about how Microsoft can turn Windows PCs into an Xbox and improve the Windows handheld situation at the same time.
AI will also play a big part in the next Xbox, especially for new form factors like handhelds. Nvidia, AMD, and Sony are all heavily involved in using AI-powered models to upscale games and improve performance and image quality, and we’re just weeks away from hearing how Nintendo plans to use Nvidia’s DLSS upscaling with its Switch 2 hardware. Microsoft is notably absent from this conversation, but Ronald dropped some hints at CES last month that the company could get a little more talkative soon.
”We think AI will be transformative, not only how games are made but also how games are played,” Ronald said last month. “There’s the content creation side which is really about enabling developers to build the games people want to play at a higher quality, and then there’s how the game actually runs. Delivering a new level of performance on different form factors at low power consumption.”
Ronald stopped short of saying how Microsoft will use AI-powered models to improve performance on different hardware, but it’s easy to imagine the company looking at something similar to PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) or Nvidia’s DLSS. These upscaling techniques have become increasingly important and popular on the PC side in recent years. Nvidia’s just-released RTX 5090 is $1,999 and heavily focuses on using AI models to multiply frame rates.
Microsoft already has its own Automatic Super Resolution feature that uses the NPUs on Qualcomm Copilot Plus PCs to enhance game visuals and improve frame rates. I suspect we’ll see something similar on the Xbox side, particularly because the DirectX team is driving this work at the core of Windows, and it will greatly benefit any Xbox handheld when it comes to battery life and performance.
When you add up the potential for an Xbox handheld, AI-powered technical leaps, and some big platform changes that combine Windows and Xbox, I think it’s clear that Microsoft is making the next Xbox even more PC-like. Xbox has been heading in that direction for years, and the Xbox Series X’s boxy, rectangular tower-like case even made it look like a PC in many ways. If Microsoft’s Windows handheld platform changes are actually at the heart of the next-generation Xbox platform, it could make for some very different Xbox hardware.
Microsoft has been steadily trying to move the Xbox name beyond its console-centric brand this generation. It’s becoming increasingly clear that what we’d normally consider the next Xbox won’t be just a single piece of hardware, but a collection of devices that can all play Xbox games.
That would really explain Microsoft’s “this is an Xbox” marketing campaign, which feels more like a vision of the future than the reality right now. It’s a future where PC makers can turn their laptops or handhelds into an Xbox or where phones stream all of your Xbox games. Microsoft is laying the groundwork to make this all a reality, and if it can pull it off, then the next Xbox really will be unlike anything we’ve seen before.
- Microsoft confirms it’s getting out of HoloLens hardware entirely. Microsoft discontinued its HoloLens 2 hardware last year, and now it’s handing off the Army’s version to Anduril. Microsoft confirmed to The Verge that it’s now “transitioning away from hardware development but will continue to provide support for HoloLens 2 hardware and software through 2027.” HoloLens is the latest victim of Microsoft’s hardware struggles.
- Microsoft Edge now has an AI-powered scareware blocker. You can now enable a scareware blocker in Edge that will identify and block existing scams and even detect new and emerging ones. It works using a local machine learning model, and if you encounter a scam website that hasn’t already been detected, Edge should automatically exit the full-screen mode that malicious sites try to use, stop audio playback, and warn you that the site probably isn’t legit. You can then report it so that Edge blocks it for everyone.
- Former Activision Blizzard boss claims Microsoft’s takeover was sparked by a failure to buy TikTok. Former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick left Microsoft more than a year ago, and he’s now claiming that he wanted to partner with Microsoft on buying TikTok in 2020. “So I called [Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella], and I said I don’t want to bid against you, it would be great if we were partners in this,” said Kotick on the Grit podcast this week. Nadella apparently said Microsoft didn’t want a partner, but that “if the deal doesn’t get done, we should sit down and talk about us buying Activision.”
- Bing Maps embraces the Gulf of America bandwagon. Google and Apple have already swapped the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America after President Donald Trump’s executive order, and now Microsoft is following the ridiculous name change. It’s only visible in the US, and at one point this week, Bing Maps even listed the Gulf of Mexico twice.
- Microsoft patches two big Windows 11 flaws and adds some feature improvements. February’s Patch Tuesday is an interesting one as Microsoft has fixed two zero-day flaws in Windows that were being actively exploited, while also adding more features to Windows 11. The KB5051987 update improves taskbar previews and adds a new system tray icon when you use apps that support Windows Studio Effects on devices like Copilot Plus PCs. The update also fixes an Auto HDR issue with games.
- Microsoft’s Clipchamp video editor gets a big update. Microsoft acquired Clipchamp in 2021 to improve the video editing experience in Windows, and it’s now adding some big changes with the latest update. A new light mode means you’re not forced to use the default dark mode, a redesigned video editor makes it easier for beginners, and timestamps have been added to the timeline to make it easier to trim and edit videos.
- Outlook for Android and iOS now lets you minimize email drafts to switch tasks. Microsoft is making it easy to minimize a draft email on your phone so you can quickly look at your Outlook calendar or find another email thread without having to resume your email from the drafts folder. A new minimize button will soon appear at the top-right corner of emails, letting you dock the draft to the bottom of the screen and quickly return to it once you’ve checked your emails or calendar. It’s a really useful quality-of-life improvement for the mobile version of Outlook that I’m sure I’ll use daily.
- Microsoft has probably sold less than 30 million Xbox Series S / X consoles. Take-Two revealed recently that Sony and Microsoft have sold more than 94 million consoles this generation so far, which means the PS5 is massively outselling the latest Xbox consoles. Paul Thurrott points out that Sony sold 65.5 million PS5 consoles through September 2024; Take-Two’s estimates are from November, putting Microsoft’s total at under 30 million Xbox Series S / X consoles. Sony revealed today that it sold 9.5 million PS5 consoles during the final three months of 2024, so 75 million in total. That means Sony might have sold a third of the total number of Xbox Series S / X consoles in a single quarter. Given Microsoft was hoping to close the gap with its big Xbox Game Pass push this generation, it clearly hasn’t achieved that goal.
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