Xbox Isn’t Planning a Mid-Gen Console Upgrade. Good.

As part of the deluge of announcements to come out of Summer Games Fest, Microsoft announced that it currently has not plans for a mid-generation console. That’s really all there is to it, and, frankly, I’m glad. I really didn’t like that we had mid-gen consoles in the first place.

According to WccfTech.com, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, speaking to Bloomberg, mentioned that the company doesn’t really feel the need to increase the power of the current Xbox Series consoles. Specifically, he said, “That’s not the feedback we’re getting right now. Right now, we’re pretty set on the hardware we have.” I’m not about to try to figure out why exactly Xbox is fine with just keeping things as is, but I’m guessing it has something to do with the fact that they’ve got games in the pipeline as it is, and they really can’t afford to move the technical goalposts on their developers. That and the current iterations of the consoles have been selling just fine.

Again, I’m actually rather happy that we’re not (likely) not going to have a repeat of the previous generation. Sure, a more powerful Xbox One/PlayStation 4 was nice and all, but what did they really offer? Slightly improved graphics and mayybe a better framerate; that’s it. Developers still had to primarily develop for the base consoles, so no one could really get all that much mileage out of them. They existed solely as a flex for those with cash to burn and a way for Sony and Microsoft to get just a little more money from hardware before the generation was done.

Beyond that though, I just really didn’t want a new pattern to emerge where instead of only having to buy new hardware once every six years or so, it’d be every three. I don’t know about y’all, but I don’t love gaming so much that I’d be willing to keep up with that. Anyway, those are just my thoughts, what do you think?


Image by flickr user: wuestenigel (cc)