Tuesday, June 13th 2023
Phil Spencer Dismisses Need for Xbox Series Hardware Refresh
Watchers of the current Xbox Series have expected Microsoft to eventually issue a mid-life refresh of one of the gaming consoles (preferably the X), given the company's history of releasing upgraded variants of past generation products—with 2017's Scorpio GPU-equipped Xbox One X being a notable example. The company's recent showcase revealed a very minor upgrade for entry level Xbox Series S—the new 1 TB SSD model was presented in a black finish, with no big changes under the hood beyond a bump up in internal storage (from 512 GB), which commands a $50 upcharge from the (now) baseline white model. Bloomberg sought a couple of comments from Xbox chief Phil Spencer post showcase presentation.
When asked about the prospect of a proper hardware upgrade for Xbox Series, his reply included the view that he does not "feel an imperative" for a significant update of the existing Microsoft games console range. He thinks that the current Xbox userbase is satisfied with the status quo: "That's not the feedback we're getting right now. Right now, we're pretty set on the hardware we have." Arch rival Sony is reported to be deep into the development of an alleged "PRO" refresh of its existing PlayStation 5 console, with insider sources claiming that the more powerful variant will arrive in 2024. Spencer could be keeping quiet about his company's potential answer (as a stealth tactic) to any future competitor, but his more immediate goal is to get the Activision Blizzard takeover deal over the finishing line.
Sources:
Bloomberg, WTOP (Image Source)
When asked about the prospect of a proper hardware upgrade for Xbox Series, his reply included the view that he does not "feel an imperative" for a significant update of the existing Microsoft games console range. He thinks that the current Xbox userbase is satisfied with the status quo: "That's not the feedback we're getting right now. Right now, we're pretty set on the hardware we have." Arch rival Sony is reported to be deep into the development of an alleged "PRO" refresh of its existing PlayStation 5 console, with insider sources claiming that the more powerful variant will arrive in 2024. Spencer could be keeping quiet about his company's potential answer (as a stealth tactic) to any future competitor, but his more immediate goal is to get the Activision Blizzard takeover deal over the finishing line.
12 Comments on Phil Spencer Dismisses Need for Xbox Series Hardware Refresh
They dont even have that, bunch of indie titles and third party games.
/partial-humor
Their flagship this year runs at 30 FPS and they don't need a hardware refresh.
They just don't want to recognize that the Series S is choking their lineup.
And whatever you go on and say against they can just say, but it`s on Game Pass, you didnt have to pay 69$ to play it, like that`s a good excuse for shitty quality.
They made sure it was almost the same cpu and same speed storage, so that wont force games to be downgraded on the S, it would just be scaled back visuals/textures/shaders.
There is serious developer issues right now in the industry which probably wont get fixed sadly as these issues have existed for decades but have become more extreme lately with developers valuing the ease of workflow and features over software performance.
I think gamepass with a Series S is actually their most compelling offer.
The S though, needed more power before it came out. It should have been much closer to 6TFLOPs. Even the 6500XT has more power than the Series S. MS could have gotten there just by increasing clocks to 2.2 or 2.3GHz. I am a little surprised they actually haven't come out with an update to boost clocks. Also, I am sure the weird memory configuration doesn't help any, and could likely use a couple extra gigs of ram at least.
I do think they should increase the total capacity to 2TB, though, especially given current NVME pricing.
XBOX ONE, without argument, was plagued by issues, while its predecessor, the 360, had plenty of variety and was mostly a solid system (aside from the RROD).
I skipped the XBOX One X because it looked like a stopgap effort.
I couldn't bring myself to buy the "Series X" (stupid name).
I play on STEAM now. My laptop is more powerful than the Xbox Series X as is my desktop.
They've been late on exclusives, the hardware is BORING and I see no reason why they wouldn't be getting DOMINATED by PS5.
Without being able to lower costs, tThe only possibility for a console with more performance would be to build an even more expensive console, and I'm not sure how well the market would receive an $800+ console.