{"id":204987,"date":"2025-10-06T12:47:05","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T12:47:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/204987\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T12:47:05","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T12:47:05","slug":"ps6-may-go-uncontested-as-rumours-of-next-gen-xbox-cancellation-force-microsoft-to-comment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/204987\/","title":{"rendered":"PS6 May Go Uncontested as Rumours of Next-Gen Xbox Cancellation Force Microsoft to Comment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PS6<\/a>Image: Push Square<\/p>\n

Update [Mon 6th Oct 2025, 3am]: Such has been the fervour of this weekend\u2019s next-gen Xbox cancellation rumours, Microsoft has released a statement to Windows Central<\/a> attempting to quash them.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the company said:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are actively investing in our future first-party consoles and devices designed, engineered and built by Xbox. For more details, the community can revisit our agreement announcement with AMD.\u201d<\/p>\n

We obviously already pointed out the AMD announcement in our original piece, but this comment hasn\u2019t done much to quell questions among the gaming community.<\/p>\n

Many have pointed out that Microsoft has made statements like this before, only to completely change its strategy later down the line.<\/p>\n

Either way, as things stand right now, the company says its committed to \u201cactively investing\u201d in future hardware. Whether that will remain true and result in an actual product remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

Whatever the case, it\u2019s alarming that this rumour picked up so much steam that the company was forced to comment on it on a Sunday.<\/p>\n

Original Story: The web is, perhaps tediously, once again awash with speculation of Xbox\u2019s unclear future.<\/p>\n

A tough week for the Redmond firm \u2013 in which it raised Game Pass<\/a> prices by 50%, causing its cancellation website to crash<\/a> \u2013 has culminated in fresh speculation that its next-gen console may be cancelled.<\/p>\n

The source is not Bloomberg<\/a> or the Financial Times<\/a>, so should be read with appropriate scepticism. However, the poster SneakersSO on NeoGAF<\/a> is known to have some knowledge of Microsoft\u2019s plans, as he broke the story about the platform holder\u2019s decision to go multiformat.<\/p>\n

Early in 2024<\/a>, prior to the company\u2019s infamous business update<\/a>, he was one of the very first to report plans of Hi-Fi Rush<\/a> and other Xbox Game Studios titles coming to the PS5. We\u2019ve obviously seen practically the entire publisher\u2019s slate follow.<\/p>\n

And in the aftermath of this latest rumour, The Verge\u2019s Tom Warren<\/a> has appeared on an Xbox podcast to point out the poster knows a \u201clot of what goes on internally\u201d. This is obviously not a corroboration of the rumour, but it does put some weight behind the source.<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s he saying? Well, in brief:<\/p>\n

There will be even more Xbox layoffs early next year.
\nCostCo is the first major retailer to remove the Xbox Series X|S from sale, but others will follow.
\nNext-gen Xbox hardware was originally planned to release in 2026, but is now \u201cup in the air\u201d.
\nXbox will focus on software publishing across all platforms, with an emphasis on its biggest brands.
\nIt\u2019ll use Game Pass as a Trojan horse for cloud gaming, and further price increases are coming.<\/p>\n

For those of you who want to read the original post<\/a> in its entirety, we\u2019ll include it unedited below:<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

The problem with all this is it directly contrasts everything Microsoft has been saying, as it\u2019s insisted several times now it has next-gen hardware in development.<\/p>\n

In fact, only four months ago in June<\/a>, it announced a \u201cmulti-year partnership with AMD to co-engineer silicon across a portfolio of devices, including future first-party consoles and cloud\u201d.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible that Microsoft may \u201coutsource\u201d its next-gen Xbox to other electronics manufacturers, like with the Asus Xbox ROG Ally X. Although it remains to be seen how mainstream \u2013 and, indeed, affordable \u2013 a product like that would be against a fully-fledged PS6.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to the PlayStation angle in this story: what would this mean for Sony?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s concern that an uncontested PlayStation could lead to a worse product for everyone, and we can certainly see where that worry comes from.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t create a crap product.<\/p>\n

Moreover, we think more than ever Sony\u2019s going to have its work cut out convincing customers to \u201cupgrade\u201d from the PS5, and that could lead to a long and slow transition between systems. It\u2019s going to need to bring its A-game.<\/p>\n

So, whether this rumour about the next-gen Xbox is true or not \u2013 and once again, we\u2019d urge you to exercise some scepticism when reading this one \u2013 we don\u2019t think too much will change for the PS6 really.<\/p>\n

Sony\u2019s got a tough road ahead, and it simply needs to deliver a compelling, affordable product with great games. Nothing has changed.<\/p>\n

\"Sammy<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Image: Push Square Update [Mon 6th Oct 2025, 3am]: Such has been the fervour of this weekend\u2019s next-gen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[7263,1281,40472,9354,1014,74],"class_list":["post-204987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-industry","tag-microsoft","tag-ps6","tag-rumours","tag-sony","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}