A recent rumour has swirled that the planned next generation of Xbox console hardware could well be a hybrid – something capable of playing Xbox console games and PC games.
In an interview with Mashable, Xbox president Sarah Bond was asked about that report. While she didn’t confirm or deny it, she does seem to suggest it may be partly true as the next console aims to have some commonalities with the recent ROG Xbox Ally handheld – including its high price point:
“Well, I can tell you you’re right, that the next-gen console is going to be a very premium, very high-end curated experience. You’re starting to see some of the thinking that we have in this handheld, but I don’t want to give it all away.”
The ROG Xbox Ally is essentially just a PC handheld with Xbox branding and some interface tweaks – allowing access to the PC version of the Xbox store as well as the likes of Steam, Epic and GOG. Xbox’s Phil Spencer previously indicated that other digital storefronts appearing on Xbox consoles in the future is a possibility.
The comments come as former PlayStation Indies lead Shuhei Yoshida recently told the Friends Per Second podcast that gaming graphics are hitting a ceiling and will be hard to market on:
“Graphics [have] almost hit the level that even I cannot tell the difference between some of the [graphical capabilities] like ray traced or not ray traced, unless it’s side by side, or higher frame rate.”
He adds that increasing the graphics power isn’t much of a reason to upgrade. Instead, it’s more other factors – like with the PS5’s adoption of a superfast SSD to cut load times.
It’s expected both the new consoles will be out late 2027/early 2028.
