Next-gen Xbox leaks, and it's a huge change for Microsoft

According to one industry insider, Microsoft is planning to take the next Xbox in a slightly different direction - and it sounds like they’ll be taking some inspiration from Valve this time around.

This news comes via Windows Central’s Jez Corden, who revealed the info on The Xbox Two Podcast last week.

"I mean the whole idea of the next Xbox is that it's gonna be a PC in essence but with a TV friendly shell that also has a specific set of specs in mind, so developers will be building for Windows PC in a way but in such a way that they know exactly what the specs will be,” Corden revealed on The Xbox Two Podcast.

“So maybe the Call of Duty rumor could be right but if it is, the dev kit talk is more about what kind of specs that they've been told to target for the next Xbox, not about having any dev kit… But I'm pretty sure new hardware is not 2026, it's 2027."

Now, obviously, Corden isn’t revealing his source here, but the news is a bit on the vague side.

Arguably every console is “a PC in essence” that just has its own unique, very specific operating system, but reading between the lines makes it sound like Valve’s discontinued Steam Machine.

Steam Machines were essentially consoles that offered players the same freedom that a PC does.

While a Steam Machine came packaged with its own specific operating system, SteamOS, there was nothing stopping you from replacing it with a different one (like for instance Windows or Linux) and treating the device like a portable PC.

It’s too early to say whether or not that’s what Microsoft intends to do with this new Xbox, but I’m not entirely sure what else Corden could have meant if not. Guess we’ll have to just wait until 2027 to find out for sure.