Featured Image Credit: Microsoft
Topics: Xbox, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Microsoft
Xbox reportedly has big plans for its next-generation hardware, and will apparently be scrapping one of modern gaming’s biggest grievances.
Despite claims of Xbox going third-party and scrapping hardware altogether the gaming giant has reiterated that nothing has changed, and plans are moving forward for its next device.
We’ve heard a lot of rumours about the next Xbox console, including one saying it’s not a console at all, it’s more like a PC. One of the latest though is suggesting it’ll do away with one of the biggest rip-offs in gaming; having to pay to play online.
On Xbox you need to be subscribed to at least the lowest tier of Xbox Game Pass, and the same thing on PlayStation with PlayStation Plus, to play online.
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Some games let you bypass this requirement like Fortnite, but for most games you need to pay more to access online multiplayer. This comes from WindowCentral’s Jez Corden, who said: “Right now, I'm told the current plan is for the next Xbox specifically to have no paywall for multiplayer.
“It wouldn't make a lick of sense for a "PC" to have paid multiplayer, particularly since it would create a strong incentive for players to simply install Steam instead of using the Xbox ecosystem on that device for online games. It remains to be seen if that plan actually plays out into reality, though.”
If this is true it’d be a big win for Xbox, but then again the company would be foolish to not implement this change considering how much we’ll be paying for the console itself…
Xbox has been throwing its 'This Is An Xbox' campaign in our face for quite a while now, hinting at its plans to venture more into PC gaming than just its own hardware.
According to additional information from WindowsCentral, Xbox's next console will support just about every generation of Xbox as well as support Steam.
As Xbox President Sarah Bond said in a recent interview it’ll be a premium piece of hardware, and if it acts like a PC it’s almost guaranteed it’ll have a PC-like price.
The latest reports reckon the next Xbox will cost around $1,500, which puts it miles ahead of the PlayStation 6 which is said to cost around $700.
Of course take all of this with a pinch of salt as plans can change. However with more and more Xbox games coming to other platforms like PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2 there really doesn’t seem to be much point in owning an actual Xbox console nowadays, meaning a potential PC hybrid would make a lot of sense.