Microsoft will not be releasing a new Xbox console every two years, head of Xbox Phil Spencer has stated.
Xbox One
Gamers will be getting mid-generation upgrade Project Scorpio for Christmas 2017 and Microsoft has just released the updated Xbox One, the Xbox One S.
Although new hardware is always being developed, Spencer insists there is now appetite for bi-annual hardware upgrades from the company.
In an interview with Game Informer, he said: "I don't have this desire to every two years have a new console on the shelf; that's not part of the console business model, and it doesn't actually help us. The best customer I have is somebody who buys the original Xbox and just buys all the games. That's the best customer for us in terms of the pure financials of it. I don't have a need to get you to go buy the newest console, or I don't have the need to create an artificial loop of, 'Here's a new console every two years', in order to get you to go buy."
Project Scorpio is coming four years after the launch of the original Xbox One and is a significantly shorter period of time than the eight years which passed between the unveiling of the Xbox 360 and the release of the Xbox One.
Spencer says that Microsoft has made no future release plans beyond the Scorpio.
He spilled: "I don't know what the next console is past Scorpio. We're thinking about it. We're looking at consumer trends and what the right performance spec and price would be, and [asking ourselves], 'Can we hit something that has a meaningful performance characteristic that a gamer would care about?' I think for consoles you have to hit a spec that actually means something in an ecosystem of televisions and games."
Tagged in Phil Spencer