After AMD announced its partnership with Microsoft to work on chips for future gaming machines, CEO Lisa Su has spoken about the deal, and what it means for AMD and Xbox going forward. In a video message, which you can check out below, Su spoke about the two companies sharing a vision for the future of gaming that revolves around players being able to play their preferred games anywhere.
“AMD and Microsoft are advancing a bold, shared vision for the future of gaming; one that enables seamless gameplay across any screen, placing gamers at the center of the experience anywhere,” said Su. “We’re so excited to be deepening our relationship with Microsoft and build on the over two decades of partnership, innovation, and trust. From the earliest days of the Xbox 360 to the most advanced consoles, such as the Xbox Series X and S, and the recently announced ROG Xbox Ally handhelds.”
In her message, Su also outlined how AMD will improve its line-up of CPU and GPU chips, saying that the company is working on designing an entire roadmap of gaming-optimised chips. According to Su, this means that Xbox and AMD will work together on designing chips for consoles, PCs, handhelds, and even systems that power Xbox Cloud.
“Moving forward, AMD will go beyond building custom chips for Xbox consoles to designing a full roadmap of gaming-optimized chips,” explained Su. “Combining the power of Ryzen and Radeon for consoles, handhelds, PCs, and the cloud. And we’re doing it all with backwards compatibility, so gamers can access their favorite titles across platforms, delivering on a promise to both gamers and developers.”
“Together, we are building a vibrant, open ecosystem that delivers the next generation of graphics and immersive gameplay, powered by AI that includes new foundational models to accelerate the state of the art in rendering. From console to cloud to handheld, AMD and Microsoft are building the future of immersive gaming. We are so excited to be working with Microsoft to bring all of this tech to gamers everywhere.”
It is worth noting that, while this partnership might be a new one, AMD’s chips have been powering Xbox consoles since at least the release of the Xbox One, which ran on an AMD APU at the time – a combination of CPU and GPU. Interestingly, the same AMD chip also powered the PS4. Moving on to the current generation of consoles, Xbox Series X/S as well as PS5 are also powered by AMD’s chips.
While this partnership might end up with Microsoft and AMD working closer together, it is unlikely to have any long-term effects on the chip-maker’s dealings with Sony for the PS5. Rather, the deal seems to largely revolve around expanding Microsoft’s Xbox Play Anywhere initiative, especially since Su mentioned gaming handhelds, PCs, and even Xbox Cloud.
Most recently, Microsoft, alongside hardware partner Asus, unveiled the ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X gaming handhelds, both of which are also powered by AMD’s chips. The ROG Xbox Ally runs on an AMD Ryzen Z2A chip, while the ROG Xbox Ally X runs on a Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip.
