Feeling Xboxed In (Premium)

This past weekend’s Xbox Games Showcase was, by all accounts, one of the better entries in the series, with a promising slate of exciting new game titles coming across the platform. And in follow-up interviews, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer triggered additional excitement when he mentioned a “pretty awesome future” for hardware and agreed that Xbox needed a handheld gaming device of its own.

Unfortunately, Microsoft also used this showcase to announce three more refreshed versions of its Xbox Series X and S video game consoles that don’t move the needle on its current hardware platform in the slightest. That’s problematic for two reasons: Sony is expected to deliver its PlayStation 5 Pro this holiday season, and Microsoft’s next-generation refresh consoles already leaked last year. So why are we getting more of the same?

To be clear, I’m on board with Phil Spencer’s inclusive vision for Xbox, where the platform is expanding past a single hardware console to become a platform that spans devices, software, and services, broadens its appeal via game studio acquisitions, respects the past through backward compatibility initiatives, and looks to the future with cloud streaming. I even see a future in which the Xbox console declines in importance and even disappears entirely.

But that future is not today.

And while the Xbox Series X and S represented a competent technical alternative to the PlayStation 5 at their respective launches in 2020, the years since then have been unkind to the Xbox hardware business. During this time, Sony has only expanded its lead against Microsoft in this crucial market, guaranteeing that Xbox will be an also-ran yet again. By some accounts, PlayStation is outselling Xbox by three-to-one. Xbox Series X and S can’t even keep pace with Xbox One, and that was considered a nadir for the platform at the time.

The Activision Blizzard acquisition should stabilize Xbox as a business in time–Microsoft still needs to overcome some acquisition-related hurdles that include one-time and temporary costs, employee redundancies, and other issues–but it’s unclear whether it can ever help the console part of that business, given the broader inclusivity strategy. But in late 2023, we were given a ray of hope: Microsoft was planning an Xbox Series X refresh code-named “Brooklyn” and a Series S refresh code-named “Ellewood,” both of which would offer significant hardware advances and reasonable price points.

Since then, however, Microsoft has delivered me-too refreshes to the current products, including an Xbox Series S in Carbon Black with 1TB of storage in September 2023, and now a white all-digital Xbox Series X with 1 TB of storage, a white Xbox Series S with 1 TB of storage, and a special edition Xbox Series X with 2 TB of storage in black with what appears to be green speckles. And … what the heck is happening? This is the console lineup that Microsoft will use to face off against PlayStation 5 Pro?

This would be disappointing enough even without knowing anything about Brooklyn and Ellewood, the former of which was to have shipped in a unique cylindrical design. Both were seen as refreshes too–the Xbox Series X and S, like the PS5, are part of the so-called ninth generation (Gen9) series of video game consoles, while their predecessors, the Xbox One and PS4, were part of Gen8. And we’re quickly approaching the logical midterm for that generation of consoles, a nearly ideal time for a good refresh.

But aside from a fresh coat of paint, some storage shifts, and the lack of an optical drive in the new all-series Series X, these consoles are just more of the same, and they don’t even move the needle on price. In an era in which Sony is handily spanking Xbox, Microsoft has responded with … more of the same. For some reason.

Yes, Phil Spencer has said that he sees no need for a mid-generation Xbox refresh. He even warned us not to take the leaked Brooklyn and Ellewood consoles too seriously, noting that plans had already changed since they were envisioned. And we’ve wondered about a Gen10 Xbox console that may or may not be based on the Arm architecture, and how that might impact the schedule. But this still feels disappointing. Like treading water.

With its hardware sales plummeting–Xbox hardware revenues were just 3 percent in the holiday 2024 quarter, and they fell 31 percent in the most recent quarter–Microsoft has some decisions to make. It’s hard to image we’ll get another round of refreshes of the current generation devices. Which, again, is surprisingly disappointing given how well they perform and match up against the PS5. So it’s possible, perhaps likely, that this minor refresh will be followed not by Brooklyn and Ellewood, but rather by a true Gen10 upgrade in a few years that will match the curious boasts we’ve heard from Xbox about future hardware.

If you care about Xbox, in particular the consoles, that can’t happen quickly enough, and it’s unclear how many disappointments we can take on the hardware side. At least the software and services future looks solid: If this recent Xbox Games Showcase was any indication, maybe Microsoft’s game studio acquisition strategy can finally start paying off, helping us forget our other woes.

Maybe.