Xbox President Teases “Very Premium” and “Curated” Next-Gen Experience

Xbox President Sarah Bond went on a media tour to discuss the new Asus ROG Xbox Ally handhelds and other Xbox-related things, and she just dropped some interesting comments about the next-gen Xbox. In an interview with Mashable, the exec hinted at a new direction for future Xbox hardware inspired by Microsoft’s work on Windows-based gaming handhelds.

“The next-gen console will be a very premium and high-end curated experience, Bond said. “You’re starting to see some of the thinking we have in this handheld, but I don’t want to give it all away.”

Bond’s “very premium” comment is quite concerning, as the current-gen Xbox Series X, which currently costs $649 in the US, is now $100 more expensive than Sony’s PlayStation 5 in the country. The $799 2TB Series X model is also $50 more expensive than the more powerful PlayStation 5 Pro, which is quite absurd.

We all know how the $500 launch price for the Xbox One allowed Sony’s $400 PlayStation 4 to quickly get ahead at the beginning of the previous console generation. This pushed Microsoft to go the opposite direction with the affordable Xbox Series S, which used to cost $299 in the US before getting a $100 price bump.

Last year, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer seemingly criticized the $699 launch price for the PlayStation 5 Pro. “To reach new players, we need to be creative and adaptive of new business models, new devices, new ways of access. We’re not going to grow the market with $1,000 consoles,” the exec said in an interview with Bloomberg.

Well, we should probably get ready for a more expensive next-gen Xbox that works more like a PC than a traditional console. The Xbox app on PC already integrates games from other stores like Steam and Battle.net, and Microsoft previously showed a new Xbox UI that integrated Steam games.

I’m not sure what to make of Bond’s “high-end curated experience” comment, however. Compared to PCs, consoles offer a curated experience with games that have been optimized for a specific hardware. That’s what made it possible for games like GTA V to run on the ageing Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 back in the day.

If the next-gen Xbox does ship with Windows and runs PC games, it’s not clear how Microsoft is going to convince developers to optimize their games for its hardware, which may be even harder to sell than current-gen Xbox consoles. Moreover, the lackluster Xbox experience on the ROG Xbox Ally is quite the opposite of the accessible and curated experience console gamers usually expect.

Microsoft is quite in a weird spot with its Xbox hardware right now: The company is releasing more of its games on rival consoles, and it’s also actively trying to convince gamers that almost every device with a screen connected to the Internet can be an Xbox.

Can Microsoft make us care about its next-gen Xbox hardware when the platform no longer has exclusive games, and the Xbox brand is becoming increasingly diluted? Microsoft should also be quite worried about SteamOS, which reportedly provides better gaming performance than Windows 11 on gaming handhelds. Valve is also said to be working on SteamOS devices for the living room, which would compete directly with Xbox and PlayStation consoles.