Nintendo and Sony are due to launch new hardware this year, but Microsoft appear to be largely sitting out on this party. Even though Phil Spencer floated the idea of iterative Xbox hardware in the future, he did speak out against minor upgrades like an ‘Xbox 1.5’ just a little while later.
So what exactly is Microsoft’s plan here? Do they really intend to introduce substantially upgraded Xbox hardware already, just three years into the Xbox One’s life cycle? Would they risk mass consumer alienation by doing something like that?
We don’t know what or when Microsoft plans to do, but what we do know is that more indications of new Xbox hardware are emerging. Just today, ‘Xbox NeXT’ has shown up on the CV of Microsoft Visual Designer– what could this mean? Is this referring to a mid cycle refresh? The term ‘Xbox NeXT’ or ‘NextBox’ has traditionally been used to refer to a new generation Xbox console- so is it possible that Microsoft has already started work on an Xbox One successor?
