Microsoft’s mid-gen refresh for the Xbox was just unwittingly outed today, thanks to the FTC lawsuit.
This is the same lawsuit where District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley ruled in favor of Microsoft, allowing them to continue pursuing the deal to acquire Activision. While Judge Corley’s decision was a major blow to the FTC, they went ahead with an appeal, and that appeal is now ongoing.
So, Microsoft was once again compelled to share documents in the course of the court case. Either by negligence or malice, the FTC failed to properly redact or censored the details about the next Xbox refresh. It is for that reason that we have these details now, courtesy of Okami Games.
Let’s get straight to the chase. The Xbox Series S will get one update, codenamed Ellewood, and Xbox Series X gets two updates, codenamed Brooklin and Uther respectively. All three will no longer have optical drives.
The new Xbox Series S will target 4 teraflops at 1440p, while both Xbox Series X updates target 12 teraflops at 4K. They also get updates to Xbox Wireless 2 standard, Bluetooth 5.2, WiFi 6E, and the new Sebile wireless controllers. The Sebile, of course, interacts with the Xbox consoles using the new standards, and can also be used for the cloud.
The Sebile is designed like the first generation Xbox Series X|S controller, but adds haptic feedback, and an accelerometer to enable motion controls.
On paper, there’s a lot to get excited about, but since this all leaked out, fans have focused on one particular detail – the new consoles will no longer have optical drives.
Of course, if you are a physical game collector, this is not the news you want to see. The lack of an optical drive will not only make it so you can’t play Xbox Series physical discs. You also won’t get to play Xbox games from prior generations that you have on disc, using the Xbox Series X|S’ backwards compatibility feature.
Ellewood 1 TB is planned to launch on August 2025 at $ 299, and Brooklyn 2 TB is coming October 2025 at $ 499. While a lot of fans were unhappy with the move to all digital, that pricing certainly makes it a tantalizing proposition.
While these are definitely legitimate since they were accidentally leaked from the FTC case, we don’t know if Microsoft will go ahead with these plans, or may be persuaded to change tack. But it must be said: because the innovation fast read speeds from SSDs have yet to be matched by Blu-Ray discs, gamers insistent on physical discs are intentionally buying bottlenecks to game performance.
It also means it’s entirely possible that gamers will embrace these changes in spite of appearances. In any case, since it’s all out in the public, Microsoft will be getting early impressions on their console plans now as well.
