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The web is, perhaps tediously, once again awash with speculation of Xbox’s unclear future.
A tough week for the Redmond firm – in which it raised Game Pass prices by 50%, causing its cancellation website to crash – has culminated in fresh speculation that its next-gen console may be cancelled.
The source is not Bloomberg or the Financial Times, so should be read with appropriate scepticism. However, the poster SneakersSO on NeoGAF is known to have some knowledge of Microsoft’s plans, as he broke the story about the platform holder’s decision to go multiformat.
Early in 2024, prior to the company’s infamous business update, he was one of the very first to report plans of Hi-Fi Rush and other Xbox Game Studios titles coming to the PS5. We’ve obviously seen practically the entire publisher’s slate follow.
And in the aftermath of this latest rumour, The Verge’s Tom Warren has appeared on an Xbox podcast to point out the poster knows a “lot of what goes on internally”. This is obviously not a corroboration of the rumour, but it does put some weight behind the source.
So, what’s he saying? Well, in brief:
There will be even more Xbox layoffs early next year.
CostCo is the first major retailer to remove the Xbox Series X|S from sale, but others will follow.
Next-gen Xbox hardware was originally planned to release in 2026, but is now “up in the air”.
Xbox will focus on software publishing across all platforms, with an emphasis on its biggest brands.
It’ll use Game Pass as a Trojan horse for cloud gaming, and further price increases are coming.
For those of you who want to read the original post in its entirety, we’ll include it unedited below:
“Without going into too much detail, not long after the last round of layoffs (next one should be coming in Q1 26 btw – and its going to be just as massive as the last one), some rumblings out of Xbox starting coming out that were a little hard to believe.
The ramifications of the CoD GP gambit not working out were just starting to get properly measured, but the thing that really stuck out to me was that suddenly, really concrete plans for actual MS Xbox HW went from being definitive, to up in the air, which was really startling given that this thing was meant to be out relatively soon. It was one of those situations where, despite folks being told ‘hey, we wanna pull the trigger on this in 2026’, the steps you would need to take in the lead up to delivering a new console gen weren’t being met. Lots of things that were ‘sure things’ started getting pushed. The Costco retailer pulling Xbox, and apparently they are one of many that we’ll learn about soon, told me all I needed to know.
To sum it up: the future of Xbox is software publishing, with a significantly honed-in focus on profitable IPs (CoD, WoW, Minecraft, Candy Crush, Forza Horizon), Cloud gaming being the home of the ‘Xbox platform’, transititioning GamePass into basically becoming the point of entry subscription for xCloud access (which will continue to drive its price tag higher btw, they aren’t done there just yet either), and releasing their software on any device that has a marketplace and users willing to buy their titles.
Maybe some OEM thing will take up the Xbox name, but given what is clearly a collapse in favorable mindshare and faith in said brand, i’m not even sure a 3rd party OEM is gonna want to have an Xbox console by the time MS is done with their reorienting of the division.”
The problem with all this is it directly contrasts everything Microsoft has been saying, as it’s insisted several times now it has next-gen hardware in development.
In fact, only four months ago in June, it announced a “multi-year partnership with AMD to co-engineer silicon across a portfolio of devices, including future first-party consoles and cloud”.
But of course, the Redmond firm has outwardly seemed pretty Schizophrenic for years now, changing its plans regularly and failing to give a clear and consistent message.
It’s possible that Microsoft may “outsource” its next-gen Xbox to other electronics manufacturers, like with the Asus Xbox ROG Ally X. Although it remains to be seen how mainstream – and, indeed, affordable – a product like that would be against a fully-fledged PS6.
Which brings us to the PlayStation angle in this story: what would this mean for Sony?
There’s concern that an uncontested PlayStation could lead to a worse product for everyone, and we can certainly see where that worry comes from.
But it’s perhaps worth noting that Xbox is doing little to challenge Sony at the moment, and the platform holder is still delivering compelling software and services.
The reality is that PlayStation is competing against all forms of entertainment these days; Switch 2 and PC remain real threats to its business, but so too do the likes of Netflix, TikTok, and YouTube. It simply can’t create a crap product.
Moreover, we think more than ever Sony’s going to have its work cut out convincing customers to “upgrade” from the PS5, and that could lead to a long and slow transition between systems. It’s going to need to bring its A-game.
So, whether this rumour about the next-gen Xbox is true or not – and once again, we’d urge you to exercise some scepticism when reading this one – we don’t think too much will change for the PS6 really.
Sony’s got a tough road ahead, and it simply needs to deliver a compelling, affordable product with great games. Nothing has changed.
As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He’s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.