In a speech to reporters during last week's Xbox Spring Showcase event keynote, Microsoft's head of Xbox Phil Spencer revealed that the Xbox One could see a future where it's upgradable rather than replaced by a stronger console several years after its release, allowing the company to keep it viable by introducing upgrades to boost its performance.
The statement, which was offered to address the concerns of various Xbox One owners who fear that the value of their consoles are diminishing thanks to various Xbox One exclusives that are beginning to appear on PC, alludes to efforts Microsoft has made to align its Windows 10 and Xbox One development activies under the internal "Universal Windows Platform."
He didn't stop at outlining internal strategies however, he went much further and argued that consoles should be upgradeable, like PCs, and that the model of game console generation shifts could be coming to an end.
"We see on other platforms whether it be mobile or PC that you get a continuous innovation that you rarely see on console," he said. "Consoles lock the hardware and the software platforms together at the beginning of the generation. Then you ride the generation out for seven or so years, while other ecosystems are getting better, faster, stronger. And then you wait for the next big step function."
Spencer noted that he believes the new hardware innovations will outweigh any that have been seen before. He claimed that the capabilities will include games being backward and forward compatible with the Universal Windows App, and that the Universal Windows Platform will provide the leeway for the Microsoft team to focus on hardware innovation.
"We can effectively feel a little bit more like we see on PC, where I can still go back and run my old Doom and Quake games that I used to play years ago but I can still see the best 4K games come out and my library is always with me. Hardware innovation continues while the software innovation is able to take advantage and I don't have to jump a generation and lose everything that I played on before," Spencer concluded.
Microsoft is due to bring Universal Windows Apps To Xbox One sometime in the future.
The idea that games and apps will be supported on Windows 10 devices and Xbox One consoles isn't new, but the idea of Xbox One, or any rival consoles, may be around for a long time - while being updated - is groundbreaking.
However, Spencer declined to go into detail about whether these plans are for the Xbox One, or a future platform that Microsoft would update during its life cycle.
"I'm not going to announce our road map for hardware," he said. "I want to make sure that people see that what we are doing enables us to be more committed to what consoles are about than we've ever been and innovate more consistently than we ever have. That's the key for me."
