The next generation Xbox console may possibly see the light of day before the release of Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls VI.
Twitter user Kepler, who has previously datamined information regarding AMD’s hardware roadmap, has shared that the next generation successor to Xbox Series X|S will launch before the release of The Elder Scrolls VI. The latter is expected to arrive 5 years after the release of Starfield.
The Elder Scrolls VI arriving 5 years after the release of Starfield would fall sometime during the year 2028. The Twitter user clarified that the next generation Xbox console isn’t that far away, suggesting that it may launch in 2027, or even as early as 2026!
Previously, the roadmap and planned features for an apparently digital-only Xbox Series X mid-gen refresh as well as plans for the next-gen Xbox console were leaked. A large amount of highly confidential and unredacted Microsoft documents were leaked via the FTC vs Microsoft court case. They were attached to a single file and incorrectly hidden before being posted publicly, resulting in the leak.
Based on the leaked information, Microsoft’s vision for the next-gen Xbox console is to develop a 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, the console is said to enable new levels of performance beyond the capabilities of the client hardware alone.
Key hardware specs for the next-gen Xbox include a possible ARM64 or x64 Zen 6 CPU, a balance of “big/little” CPU cores, a GPU that is co-design with AMD or based on AMD’s Nevi 5 architecture, and programmable ML silicon. In terms of new features, the console is said to offer “next-gen” DirectX Raytracing, dynamic Global Illumination, Micropolygon Rendering Optimizations, ML Based Super Resolution, extensibility model for faster iteration and innovation, and a “thin” operating system.
However, interestingly, Twitter user Kepler claims to have heard of different information from the plans leaked via the the FTC vs Microsoft case. Perhaps the software giant has axed its mid-gen console plans in favor of full fledged next generation Xbox hardware that arrives a bit earlier than expected. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has stated in the past that the Xbox Series X is essentially the mid-gen Xbox console of the current generation.
