Xbox head Phil Spencer has some new interesting things to say about Xbox One’s hardware upgrades, in reaction to reports that Sony will be releasing a PlayStation 4.5.
Several reports have come up that the PlayStation 4.5 will have upgraded hardware, although there seems to be disagreement as to whether it will be a true 4K console. It seems that the upgraded console could be released this year. Phil himself announced plans for Xbox to be upgradeable itself, but in this case, he was touting the scalability and flexibility potential of the UWP platform, for both Xbox consoles and Windows PCs. He refers to UWP developed games being ‘backward and forward compatible.’
Phil does not seem to approve of the idea of releasing a hardware upgraded console mid-life cycle. He sees their console as capable, and says Microsoft would want to only upgrade their hardware if they could bring a substantial change. In other words, Microsoft would wait until another console generation.
You can read Phil’s statement in full below:
I’m not a big fan of Xbox One and a half. If we’re going to move forward, I want to move forward in big numbers. I don’t know anything about any of the rumors that are out there, but I can understand other teams’ motivations to do that. For us, our box is doing well. It performs, it’s reliable, the servers are doing well. If we’re going to go forward with anything, like I said, I want it to be a really substantial change for people – an upgrade.
Do you agree with Phil Spencer’s assessment? Would you buy a PlayStation 4.5 after buying a PlayStation 4? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.