Xbox has given us a small sneak preview into the next generation of its hardware, and it sounds as though the multi-device, multi-storefront approach will continue across the next few years, at least.
In a new video, Xbox president Sarah Bond discusses what’s next for Xbox and its hardware, and while it sounds like there will be new consoles from the company, they’re going to look pretty different from what we’re used to.
Bond says that Xbox has formed a “multi-year partnership” with AMD to create chips for its new devices, including “next-generation Xbox consoles”. Said machines will also include backwards compatibility with previous-gen Xbox games, by the sound of things.
According to Bond, this is all in service of building a platform that allows you to play games that aren’t constrained to a single device or a single store ecosystem.
While we don’t know exactly what that means, it sounds as though next-gen Xbox devices will allow you to access stores outside of the Microsoft Store. That could mean PC stores like Steam, GOG, or the Epic Store become accessible on Xbox devices, which would give console gamers a much broader spectrum of games to play.
In closing, Bond says the Xbox team is working closely with the Windows folks to ensure that “Windows is the number one platform for gaming”. It’s arguably telling that she says “Windows” rather than “Xbox”; that could imply that next-gen Xbox hardware will run on the Windows platform rather than a bespoke ecosystem for consoles.
In recent years, Xbox has been moving away from its own exclusive ecosystem in favor of releasing its games on other platforms; titles like Forza Horizon 5, Grounded, and Gears of War Reloaded, all of which either were or would have been Xbox exclusives, have been released on other platforms.
It’s fair to say Xbox has roundly lost the latest “console wars”, if such things are still ongoing (which Xbox would like you to believe they aren’t); if last year’s sales figures are to be believed, then the Xbox Series X|S range is selling much worse than the PS5, which is probably why Bond and her company want to get out of the exclusive business.
Of course, we’re still probably a good few years away from next-generation Xbox hardware, so we’re probably going to have to wait a while to discover what the company’s vision for its new direction is. Stay tuned for more.
