- This is one of the biggest leaks in gaming history,
the entire 2030 Xbox lineup has been leaked.
We're talking about a brand new Xbox Series X,
updates to the Xbox Series S, a brand new controller,
and what Microsoft are planning for the next generation.
We're talking 2028, an all new generation of Xbox,
and it is all fully leaked in this absolutely wild document.
So this stems from the FTC. (ambient music continues)
So Microsoft have been trying to purchase Activision
for a while now, and as part of that
they have given over an enormous amount of documents,
planning documents, and just a lot of stuff
that has been a little bit embarrassing,
emails, all this kind of stuff.
But the thing that really jumps out to me, is this document,
which is gone accidentally live this morning.
Now, I'll say that this document dates from May 2nd, 2022,
so it is a little bit over a year old,
which means that some of the details might be
slightly out of date today, but largely speaking,
there is a huge amount of detail here
that there's just not gonna be time for them to change.
So the controller, codename Sebile,
has been a massive, massive point of an overhaul,
and honestly it's way more than I would've expected.
So this is targeted for June of 2024,
so by around that normal sort of,
I guess it used to be E3 timeline,
and the things that they're going to be doing with this,
I would argue is a bigger update to the controller
than when we went from the Xbox One to the Series X.
First of all, goodbye AA batteries,
the rechargeable is finally going to be
built into the controller, which yeah, about time.
There are also a lot of proper quality of life improvements.
So there's going to be lift to wake the controller,
which is such a good idea, I can't believe that someone
hasn't actually done that already.
We're talking about updated Bluetooth,
we're also talking about the sort of two-tone finish,
which looks a little bit more like an Elite controller,
in my opinion.
And we also have modular thumb sticks
with improved longevity.
Now, a lot of when you look at this doc,
a lot of what it seems like they're aiming for here
is not only an improved controller that can be used,
not only on-console,
but also of course mobile and cloud and whatnot.
But also to make it a little bit more sustainable, right?
So getting rid of those AA batteries,
having a rechargeable built in, of course USB-C,
having the ability for you to fix your own thumb sticks
at the very least.
Now, what they mean by modular thumb sticks, I'm assuming,
is just like you could pop the stick off
and replace it once you wear it out,
I don't think it's something like, oh, hall sensor
and something that's significantly more, you know, involved,
but still a major update to the controller.
We're also talking about motion controls in this.
So there's going to be an accelerometer
built into the controller,
and the haptics are also going to double as speakers.
When I look at this controller,
what I really see is this is Xbox targeting
a much more DualSense-like controller.
I think that Microsoft
were probably caught a little flatfooted
when they saw the DualSense controller
and just how far Sony had pushed that.
So now with a few years to work on it,
they've really kind of revamped this controller
from top down, and personally
I'm very excited to get my hands on it,
it seems like a pretty significant update.
And then there's the brand new Xbox Series X,
codenamed Brooklin.
So everyone who was expecting
a mid-generation pro console is going to be disappointed,
because this is much more similar to a slim console,
although it is a lot more than just a slim Xbox.
First and foremost, the design is being completely changed.
Now, when I first saw the Series X,
and specifically the components inside,
what struck me was it looks expensive.
So not only are there two individual boards,
the motherboard, and there's a daughter board,
that are sort of sandwiched between this metal plate,
and then the entire thing is cooled by one large fan
which pulls air from the bottom.
It's a very clever design, and it's a big reason
why I think the Series X is so much smaller than the PS5,
but it's also a big reason
why I would be absolutely shocked to find out
that the Series X is cheap to manufacture, right?
Like, if you look at what's inside the PS5
versus the Series X,
it is clear that Microsoft has invested a lot of money
in a very clever design,
but a very expensive design to manufacture.
So designing a slim version of it,
there's a lot of room for them to bring their costs down.
But one of the biggest surprises here
is that this Series X is dropping the disc drive.
So yeah, you could see, I mean it's a cylindrical box,
somewhat similar to the Mac Pro, and I think there's
some interesting sort of similarities there.
But if this leak is true,
and I certainly believe it's true, although again,
I do think there's some details
that likely have some room for change.
They're targeting an all-digital lineup starting in 2024,
so Series S of course never had a disk drive,
but the Series X is going to drop the disk drive,
and nothing I can see in these documents indicate
that they are planning on offering it as an option.
Much like we're largely expecting Sony
to drop the disk drive,
but still have like an optional attachment,
or accessory or something.
That's a tough pill to swallow,
if I'm being entirely honest with you.
I understand that, you know, digital is clearly the future,
and it's something they're pushing more and more,
and if any of these companies are gonna do it
between Sony and Microsoft, it's gonna be Microsoft,
because they want you to sign up for Game Pass,
they don't really care that much about physical sales,
but I think there're gonna be a lot of issues
if they're just shipping purely digital consoles
when it comes to retailers.
Think about Best Buy or GameStop,
like why are they gonna really push your Xbox
if they can't make any money selling physical games?
If it's up to me, and this is just pure speculation,
again, there's no basis of these rumors
as far as in these documents, but I would be very surprised
if there's not at least
some kind of like disc drive attachment
that you can purchase for the Xbox.
There is now a USB-C port
on the front of that new Series X,
so to me it would seem like a kind of no-brainer
to at least have some kind of disc drive attachment,
but for right now, if we're just basing it
purely on their roadmap here for 2030,
they're gonna have an Xbox Series X in 2024
with no disc drive and no backup.
And I like how the tagline here is,
"The most powerful Xbox ever, now adorably all digital,"
(laughs)
I mean sure, "adorably all digital",
we'll go with that,
not, "Gamers are gonna be real mad
that they don't have the ability
to play their back-compat games without,
you know, buying them again, or using Game Pass.
Now, this will be shipping with that updated controller,
and there are also some improvements on the inside.
So one of the ones that I think is kind of interesting
is the actual processor.
So they're gonna be shrinking it
from the original seven-nanometer chip,
which actually have one right here,
down to a six-nanometer chip.
Now that actually seems, maybe not particularly ambitious,
largely because Sony already did
that exact seven-to-six-nanometer swap,
and they did it in 2022.
So with the 1200 model of the PS5,
Sony secretly shrunk the size of the processor
to a six-nanometer chip,
which gives them a little bit more power efficiency,
and importantly it's a little bit cheaper
for them to manufacture.
Now, that seems like a very straightforward and easy update
for the Microsoft crew, but I will say
that the efficiency and the gains on that are very small,
like it is a technically better chip, more efficient,
a little bit cheaper to manufacture,
but it's a pretty small difference,
so the cooling requirements for this Xbox
are likely not going to be enormously lower,
which means that, while this is going to be a redesign,
I wouldn't expect it to be that much smaller,
if I'm entirely honest with you.
We're also talking about a new south bridge,
which again is going to help to refine
some of the actual size and cost of these things,
is going to have faster Wi-Fi 6E,
that USB-C, new Bluetooth radio, a pretty sizable upgrade,
I would say a very healthy slim model,
and they're still targeting it at $499,
the exact same price of the Series X at launch.
Now, because this is a digital-only console,
and they're probably saving a little bit of space
for the disc drive and packaging and whatnot,
they're also going to have to offer bigger SSDs,
and they do have that listed here in the actual list
as far as a two-terabyte option.
Next up we've got the update to the Series S,
codenamed Ellewood.
Now this is a more minor refresh,
because it's not a physical redesign of the actual console,
so we're talking about still $299,
but making that 1 terabyte SSD standard.
And if you remember just a couple of weeks ago,
Microsoft released the 1 terabyte Series S, but at $350.
I actually really like the Series S,
as you would know if you've seen that video,
but making the 1 terabyte model $300 makes a ton of sense.
And there's even a reference here
that when this model comes out,
they're going to put the old Series S with 512
on fire sale, $199 for Black Friday,
and that is a deal my friends.
Now, this will also be packaged in
with the brand new updated controller.
Now, they do say that it's got reduced power,
although I don't actually believe
that this is going to be an updated chip,
largely because I think that reduced power
is going to be based on a better power supply
and the better standby mode.
But still, a very nice little update for the Series S.
Timeline-wise, we're looking at the new Series S launching
in September of 2024,
and we're seeing the Series X in November,
and these are both, I would say, fairly nice upgrades.
Now, it's certainly interesting to think about the fact
that there's not going to be a pro version of the console
this time around, but honestly I'm not surprised by that.
You know, Phil Spencer's already kind of gone on record
saying that he doesn't really find
that there's a need for that.
I kind of personally agree, but also,
it's gonna be a little bit of an awkward situation
for the Xbox crew
when Sony are gonna be out here with a PS5 Pro for years,
and there's really not going to be
an Xbox counterpoint to that
except for the next generation.
Yeah, my friends, it's not just mid-gen updates,
we've also gotta look at what they're planning
for the next generation of the Xbox
(laughs) I feel so bad for the Xbox guys that this leaked,
but there is so much information here,
it is wild that this thing is out here.
And we're talking about options
on how much they want to invest in these things,
how many consoles they think they're gonna sell,
it's wild.
But the thing that I think is also really interesting,
is the ideas for the future.
Now. this is clearly not fully baked,
specifically they have Gen 10 investigations listed here,
so it's something that I think they're well into development
but there's no way that that's locked down yet.
But, they're targeting 2028
for a brand new generation of Xbox.
There's a lot of other stuff in this current gaps slide,
which I think is really interesting to pull up.
So not only a new elite controller,
as well as a luxury controller,
which is not currently funded as of 2022,
but something they want to investigate.
PC accessories, the ability to customize your Xbox
via Design Lab, which I think would be really cool,
they've already kind played around with that
with some skins,
but the ability to actually fully customize your controller
would be really nice.
And then there's this Not in Scope for 1st party,
kind of the off-limit stuff,
which is like earbuds, remotes, controllers,
handheld, which I find to be really funny
they're like, hey, we're not doing an Xbox handheld.
There's also a sneak peek here
at what the next generation would look like.
Now I will say, out of everything that we've talked about,
this is the thing
that you have to have the biggest grain of salt for,
because it's clearly Microsoft thinking
about what they want to do.
But there's some really interesting nuggets here.
First and foremost is the idea for cohesive cloud gaming.
The concept is that you would be able to leverage
not only cloud resources, but also your local game
to be able to play stuff that is bigger,
that is higher fidelity.
I remember that there was a,
I think it was Crackdown on the Xbox One
that they had tried to do something similar
but it was a little too early.
Now, what this really truly means
I think still feels like it's a little bit up in the air,
but there are some really interesting nuggets
for what we might expect for the next generation.
So there are some things
that Microsoft are specifically calling out as far as,
does it make sense to go with an ARM CPU versus x64,
and they're specifically calling out AMD Zen 6,
which would be what they would be basing it on,
talking about big versus little CPU cores,
co-designing the GPU versus making their own
or licensing the IP, having a neural processor,
which is pretty much standard across the board
for things like upscaling and whatnot.
And then we're talking
about things like Next Gen Raytracing,
a thin OS for super cheap, like less-than-$100 handhelds.
Like, obviously this is all
just stuff they're planning right?
So it's super, super early,
these are just the things they're thinking about.
But this is our first real look
at what the 2028 future of gaming is going to look like,
and man, I feel like I gotta sit down after all this stuff.
Can we just all appreciate this moment in history
that we have seen such an enormously comprehensive look
at the current and next generation of gaming?
Again, I want to give a sincere apology to the Xbox crew,
'cause the fact that this has leaked is brutal for them.
But from a gamer's point of view, this is good news
that Xbox clearly are very, very much investing
in the future.
And this is not even counting a lot of the other stuff,
I mean, there's emails from Phil Spencer
talking about how he wishes he could buy Nintendo
but he couldn't quite pull it off,
there's a ton of stuff from Bethesda,
there's a lot of stuff in here.
But I'm specifically talking about the console stuff,
'cause I personally think that that's the most relevant.
And the fact that we are going to be looking
at a very interesting update
to the Series X and the Series S,
I'm very curious to see what you think in the comments.
But also, a sneak peek
at what the next generation of gaming is going to look like
is very, very exciting.
Stay tuned, my friends,
I think the console wars are starting to heat right back up,
and if you subscribe,
you know that I'm gonna give you the play by play,
at six o'clock in the morning, every time something leaks.