Early last year, Microsoft started talking about its next Xbox, and Xbox boss Sarah Bond seemed to be promising something big when she said that the company is focused on “delivering the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation”.
It’s obviously a statement of commitment that Xbox gamers haven’t forgotten, but what exactly can we expect? Now, the often reliable leaker and insider eXtas1s has weighed in and told us what he knows from his sources, and it’s pretty startling stuff. He says that the next Xbox will be Windows-based and seems to have integrated support for both the Epic Games Store and Steam (in addition to the Microsoft Store) so you’ll be able to shop from whichever store you prefer and has the best prices.
The Xbox will still behave and look like a console in the menus, as Microsoft is working on a equivalent to Steam’s Big Picture, which should be able to be used for both PC and Xbox games. Furthermore, backwards compatibility will be offered for your old games, although no more support will be added beyond the games that work today.
Game Pass will continue to be an important aspect, and more tiers are planned, including a sought-after cloud tier that allows you to play everything via the cloud, but also a tier with advertising (which is thus assumed to be cheaper).
What such a device would cost is anyone’s guess. As we know, the price of hardware has gone up considerably, but if it’s a more traditional PC hiding in a console shell, it opens up the possibility that Microsoft could release both more and less powerful versions, with the former being able to go all out.
What do you think of this strategy, assuming it is correct?