Microsoft and Xbox appeared in court earlier this year over its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Various previously unseen documents from those court proceedings have leaked, revealing Xbox head Phil Spencer considered acquiring Nintendo and Warner Bros. Games at one point, an Xbox Series X/S refresh and a new Xbox controller planned for 2024, and potential remasters of Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Another leaked document details the company’s plans for a next-gen hybrid console in 2028, as reported by The Verge.
This document stops short of revealing what the console is, what it could be called, and what it might look like one day. However, it reveals some key details about its architecture and how Xbox views it as a hybrid game platform that uses the cloud.
In the “Our Vision” section of the document, Microsoft writes, “Develop a next generation hybrid game platform capable of leveraging the combined power of the client and cloud to deliver deeper immersion and entirely new classes of game experiences. Optimized for real time game play and creators, we will enable new levels of performance beyond the capabilities of the client hardware alone.”
The document also lists “key strategic decisions & investments” related to CPU, GPU, graphics innovation, and more. You can check it all out for yourself below:
The Verge via FTC vs. Microsoft Court Documents
The Verge obtained another document that shows a timeline of Xbox console releases, dating back to the original Xbox in 2001. That timeline has “Next Gen” listed for 2028, with notes like “Cloud Hybrid Games” and “Immersive Games & App Platform.”
The Verge via FTC vs. Microsoft Court Documents
Another document indicates hardware design would begin in 2024, with dev kits arriving in 2027 before the launch in 2028. Head to The Verge for more in-depth details on that and more.
For more, read about how Xbox head Phil Spencer considered acquiring Nintendo and Warner Bros. Games in 2020, and then check out the refreshed Xbox Series X/S and new Xbox controller coming next year, according to internal Microsoft documents. After that, read about how a leaked Microsoft document indicates remasters of Fallout 3 and Oblivion could be on the way and how The Elder Scrolls VI won’t be released until at least 2026.
[Source: The Verge]
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