We’ve already talked about the next-gen, “premium” Xbox worrying dedicated fans, but Microsoft seems highly committed to the idea. Essentially, the next Xbox console will be a Windows PC and console hybrid. That’s just a fancy way of saying it will be a Windows PC with some sort of Xbox Fullscreen Experience, as seen on the ROG Xbox Ally handheld.
In an interview with TBPN, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella talked about Xbox’s rapidly changing business model. He did not shy away from talking about Steam either. Here’s an interesting snippet from the interview:
“Now, we’re the largest publisher after the Activision [deal]. Therefore, we want to be a fantastic publisher. Similar approach to what we did with Office. We want to be everywhere, on every platform.”
While talking about the console/PC-hybrid, Nadella said the following: “It’s kind of funny that people think about the console-PC as two different things. We built the console because we wanted to build a better PC which could then perform for gaming. I kind of want to revisit some of that conventional wisdom.”
What Does An Xbox/PC Hybrid Look Like?
As someone who is primarily a PC gamer, I can already tell you what the software experience will look like for the next Xbox. If I launch the Xbox app right now, I get an Xbox logo that glows as the app loads, the background is a promotional image of The Outer Worlds 2, and all my games from Xbox, Steam, and Epic sit in my library together. This is very similar to the Xbox Fullscreen Experience on the ROG Xbox Ally.
Microsoft is essentially building a gaming PC with a console skin on top. Through Steam, PC gamers have access to a wider variety of titles, even games like God of War: Ragnarok and The Last of Us. If the next Xbox is just a PC, that means you’ll be able to play PlayStation games on it. As cool as that sounds, remember that high-end gaming PCs do not come cheap. Xbox has already stated that its upcoming hardware will be a “highly curated and premium” experience, and I’m thinking the price might even reach $1000 or above as a result.
