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Journalism of Courage
Microsoft in an Official Xbox Podcast Thursday has cleared up the air regarding a lot of things alongside dropping new hints for the roadmap ahead – and that includes a console upgrade with the goal of bringing along the “largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation.” In short, the company isn’t exiting the hardware business (phew). But some of the exclusive titles will indeed be finding their way to other consoles in the near future.
Read on to know when this next-gen console is expected to drop and what Xbox’s strategy looks like going forward.
Microsoft confirmed they will be bringing a select number of games that were previously exclusive to Xbox platforms over to PlayStation and Nintendo platforms. Exactly which four games weren’t announced, but some clues about what type of games to expect were dropped.
Xbox boss Phil Spencer said “We looked at games that are over a year old. So they’ve been on Xbox and PC for a while. A couple of the games are community-driven games, new games, kind of first iterations of a franchise that have reached their full potential, let’s say, on Xbox and PC – there’s always growth, franchises that we obviously want to continue to invest in.”
He also reiterated this shouldn’t be taken as an indication of any major strategy shift regarding Xbox exclusives in general. It seems these four games are more of a one-off expansion to other platforms rather than the start of a sweeping new approach. But it will be interesting to see if more formerly exclusive games make the jump in the future.
Previous news of Xbox exclusives going cross-platform sparked speculation that Microsoft might pivot to focus just on software and services, exiting the console hardware business completely. But Xbox executives definitively shut down any suggestion of that during the podcast.
Xbox President Sarah Bond actually teased their next-gen console, stating “We’re also invested in the next-generation roadmap. What we’re really focused on there is delivering the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation, which makes it better for players and better for creators and the visions that they’re building.”
Xbox head Phil Spencer also reiterated their commitment to hardware, saying “It’s all about putting Xbox in the best position, and our hardware is a critical component of that.”
So while Xbox games may be expanding to new platforms, Xbox itself is clearly staying put in the console hardware business.
“There’s some exciting stuff coming out in hardware that we’re going to share this holiday. We’re also invested in the next-generation roadmap. What we’re really focused on there is delivering the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation, which makes it better for players and better for creators and the visions that they’re building,” said Phil Spencer.
The “largest technical leap” is a rather ambitious goal especially when the Xbox Series X – which we’d say was a pretty serious upgrade over the preceding Xbox One series – is taken into account. Is the next-gen console set to be an even bigger upgrade? That’s What Spencer seems to suggest.
Exactly when this massively upgraded console will hit the shelves is still up in the air, but Microsoft’s Sarah Bond has also announced that the team has some hardware plans for this year: “So we’re giving them [developers] an easy way to access as many players as possible. And we actually have more creators right now building for Xbox than ever before, thousands of them, by nature of those investments. And we got more to come.
“There’s some exciting stuff coming out in hardware that we’re going to share this holiday,” she added.
Speculation is rife that the new hardware could be an Xbox gaming handheld – and Spencer has also been liking posts on X that talk about this hardware. So between the various hints dropped intentionally or unintentionally, signs are strongly pointing to new Xbox hardware in 2024, whether that’s a traditional next-gen console, handheld, or potentially both.
The Xbox Game Pass subscriber count continues its growth, now hitting 34 million users according to Xbox boss Sarah Bond. The last time Xbox revealed these figures was in January 2022 when the Activision Blizzard acquisition was announced. Back then, Microsoft said Game Pass had surpassed 25 million subscribers.
Phil Spencer also commented that Game Pass is now “kind of at a scale” where it is a sustainable and profitable business – great news for the Netflix-style gaming service.
Xbox has confirmed that the first Activision Blizzard game will be making its way to Game Pass. On March 28, the highly anticipated Diablo 4 will launch day-and-date on Game Pass for Xbox and PC. The online-only, open-world action RPG was released on June 5, 2023, and has received very positive ratings overall.
Microsoft has an Xbox showcase event lined up for June, though no other details have been provided yet. We don’t know whether this will be focused on hardware, software or both.
So there you have it – Xbox bringing select games to new platforms but remaining firmly committed to console hardware, next-gen machines strongly hinted for 2024, massive growth for Game Pass, and more games coming to the catalogue starting with Diablo 4.
