Xbox’s Next Console Will Be A “Very Premium, Very High-End” System

Xbox is in a state of flux at the moment, with nobody really certain what the company’s plans are after another pretty disastrous generation. With the next PlayStation reportedly starting production in 2027, all eyes are on whether Xbox will actually bother putting out a console this time around, or whether it has another strange strategy up its sleeve.

There have been plenty of rumors, of course. It’s been hinted that Xbox’s next line of consoles may be all that traditional, with an Xbox/PC hybrid talked about quite frequently, but nothing has been confirmed so far. Thankfully, Mashable was on hand to squeeze Xbox president Sarah Bond for more information in a recent interview, and while she remained as tight-lipped as always, she did reveal a very small nugget of info.

Xbox’s Next Console Will Be A “Very Premium, Very High-End” System

” … The next-gen console is going to be a very premium, very high-end curated experience,” says Bond. “You’re starting to see some of the thinking we have in this handheld [ROG Xbox Ally], but we don’t want to give it all away.”

It’s not a lot to go on, but personally, my mind goes straight to the word “premium.” We know that this is usually a buzzword that the industry uses instead of ‘expensive’, and Bond appears to be suggesting that Xbox’s next-gen console may cost a pretty penny when it actually launches. However, a big price point means it will most likely have the tech to back it up, and a high-end Xbox/PC hybrid would definitely be on the pricier end of the console spectrum.

This also lines up with what insider Moore’s Law Is Dead recently said about the next PlayStation console, as he claimed it would be less powerful but cheaper than the next-gen Xbox console. From the way that Xbox is going, by pricing people out of buying traditional Xbox consoles, I can definitely see the company shifting more towards the PC market, and building a powerful console/PC hybrid to try and bridge the gap.

Whether it works is another matter entirely. Xbox has been jacking up the prices of pretty much everything recently, including its own developer kits, so it may find that it has a much smaller audience if it’s planning to make its product more “premium”, as Sarah Bond would likely put it. At least we’re not going to have to wait too long to find out exactly what Xbox has planning.