The rumor mill must have an equity clause in there somewhere. Because no sooner have we heard a wealth of details about Sony's new “PS4.5,” “PS4K,” or “Neo,” depending on how we’re feeling, do we have a new report that concerning Microsoft's MSFT -0.22%plans for advancing the Xbox line. The Verge’s Tom Warren reports that Microsoft is prototyping different versions of a new Xbox, some of which would come with modular upgrades. This is standard operating procedure, whether business as usual or not: we’re far enough into the console cycle that we would expect a manufacturer to start looking forward. What this upgrade will look like however, is a mystery.
“I’m not a big fan of Xbox One and a half. If we’re going to move forward, I want to move forward in big numbers,” Xbox head Phil Spencer said recently when asked about the upgrade rumors. “If we’re going to go forward with anything, like I said, I want it to be a really substantial change for people — an upgrade.”
Spencer has been pretty nonspecifically vocal about the whole upgraded Xbox thing — saying at first that he could imagine a future with upgradeable consoles, then saying that he doesn’t want to do that with Xbox, then saying that he wants to maintain the integrity of console generations. It all leaves us with the notion that Microsoft is likely working on some sort of new Xbox One, but very little concept of whether this will be an entirely different machine, a full console generation, or what. It’s possible that the company is still very early in the testing phase, even though it’s looking more and more likely that Sony and Nintendo will each be stepping up to the plate with new hardware in the fall. I imagine we would have heard more concrete rumors if Microsoft was getting ready to ship something quite that soon, but it’s possible that the company is just running a very tight ship on this one.
Here’s a prediction out of left field: an upgraded, Oculus Rift compatible Xbox One. The box would need some much beefier insides to make it up to the Rift’s requirements, but the optimization benefits of a console could help with that a little bit. We already know that
Facebook FB +1.46% and Oculus are plenty chummy with Microsoft — the Rift is shipping with an Xbox One controller — and Rift compatibility would provide a handy answer to Sony’s Playstation VR. As far as unfounded speculation goes, that’s about as unfounded as it gets, but I wouldn’t discount it.
A lot of question marks, but we’ll know more at E3, even if Microsoft doesn’t mention the thing at all.
