A visual design lead at Xbox has potentially let everyone in on a secret pertaining to Microsoft’s next move with their console division, stating that he is working on the “Xbox neXt” on his LinkedIn profile.
David Gardner, who has previously worked on the Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Xbox SmartGlass, lists “Xbox neXt” among the projects he has helped design. With rumors circulating that Microsoft is working on a more powerful upgrade of the Xbox One, which could potentially be unveiled at this year’s E3, the Xbox neXt could be the name of the new console, or at least a placeholder title.
Microsoft hasn’t confirmed that it’s working on an upgraded version of the Xbox One though Head of Xbox Phil Spencer recently made some comments that suggested this would be the case. Spencer said: “We can effectively feel a little bit more like what we see on PC where I can still go back and run my old Quake and Doom games, but then I can also see the best 4K games coming out.”
He concluded: “Hardware innovation continues and software takes advantage. I don’t have to jump generation and lose everything I played before.”
A recent rumor suggested that Sony was working on a new version of the PS4, dubbed the PS4K, that would boast visual and performance improvements that would make the console capable of playing games in an ultra HD, 4K resolution. If this is to be the case, then Microsoft would likely want to debut a similarly powerful console of its own, and Spencer’s comments suggest that the team at Xbox is looking to make this the case.
However, he has also previously stated that the company wouldn’t want to make an Xbox 1.5, telling GameInformer:”If we’re going to move forward, I want to move forward in big numbers.
“For us, our box is doing well. It performs, it’s reliable, the servers are doing well. If we’re going to go forward with anything, like I said, I want it to be a really substantial change for people – an upgrade.”
While this would point to Microsoft not developing a new version of the Xbox One, it could simply mean that Spencer believes the Xbox neXt is a significant upgrade to the Xbox One and not an incremental update, as many have predicted the rumored PS4K will be. There’s also the possibility that the Xbox neXt isn’t new hardware at all and is actually a completely different project for the company, but until Microsoft makes an official announcement, this is merely speculation. Hopefully we’ll learn more about the Xbox neXt at E3.
