Rumours Of A New Cheaper Xbox One Model “Confirmed”

Peter Chapman 49 Comments

It would appear that Microsoft has been leaking this week. We’ve seen rumours of new games, including Halo 2 Anniversary Edition and Crackdown 3 and we’ve heard rumblings of a hardware revision for the Xbox One. Now VG247 sensationally claims to have confirmation from a trusted source that there is a new model coming and it’s coming this year.

The new version of the Xbox One has been rumoured to be without a disc drive and also to have a bluetooth adapter in it, although VG247’s source hasn’t confirmed those details. They do claim to know that it’ll be cheaper than the existing model though – a claim which could be very damaging to the Xbox One’s prospects at retail between now and the release of any hardware revision.

Original rumours suggested a bigger 1TB hard disk and a white casing too. There has also been word of the much-requested dashboard update being due in March. That’s supposed to fix many of the issues people have raised with the social aspects of the new console.

While we have no reason to doubt the veracity of VG247’s claims, we’d be reluctant to call this “confirmation” of anything just yet. Even without official word, we’d always want at least two (and preferably three) reliable sources who can independently confirm a story before we’d call it anything but a rumour or a potential leak. It appears that VG247 only has one source who is corroborating some of the details that first appeared on GAF and were lent weight by sources at The Verge.

Whatever way you think about the potential for these leaks to be true, someone at Microsoft is going to be furious. Hopefully we’ll see an official statement soon.

Source: VG247

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49 Comments

  1. Xbox Two?

  2. Lol,that is all..

  3. This sounds extremely panicky from MS and as a consumer it doesn’t fill me with confidence that their current XO is going to last for the next 7 or 8 years.

  4. I think the title is misleading with the word confirmed but nothing actually confirmed.

    How much money would they save by not putting in a minute bluray drive? I doubt it would be that much on the grand scale of things. Then they’ve got the cost of the bigger hard drive.

    • that’s why it’s in quotation marks – it’s quoting the source of the story, which does claim that it’s been confirmed.

    • It will probably cost more for the bigger hard drive but won’t be paying royalties to Sony for Blu-Ray.

    • I don’t think royalty rates to Sony are the reason either.

      The royalty rates are in the order of 10$ per unit and 0.1$ per blue-ray:
      http://www.one-blue.com/royalty-rates/

      But not all that money goes to Sony but to a group of companies. (I think Sony has the largest share but I can’t find a reference now.)

  5. “Who cares!? We changed our policy completely a few times before the launch, why not change the whole console itself. People will still buy it”

  6. Unless it’s a Kinect-less version or an internal hardware power boost, I can’t see it making much difference.

    • I’m going for Kinect-less too. The obvious price-cutter.

      • Plus… they want to snaffle some of the resources it takes up to speed up the overall power of the X! to try and help devs maintain parity with the PS4 on multi-platform titles.

      • They couldn’t possibly fragment their userbase with SKUs that perform differently. For one thing, it would well and truly piss off their early adopters, the ones that had faith in MS despite all their criticisms.

        Who knows though, consoles are the only mainstream technology that doesn’t do performance boosting annual refreshes, and MS might just be stupid/brave enough to try breaking that particular tradition.

        I can certainly see a BR drive-less and Kinect-less SKU though, with them getting around the retail issue by selling codes in stores.

      • If they remove the Kinect for the next version, I can see a lot of fans who purchased the original XB1 being very upset.

      • I would like that but I think is highly unlikely. Kinect is one of the main differences with PS4 (the others being TV support and allegedly the cloud). If they drop it, they would be selling a very similar product to PS4. And then, the only possible way to compete would be with the price and brand loyalty. I am not sure obviously, but I don’t think MS want to get in a brand loyalty competition with Sony or in a price war with a hardware expert.

      • Oh, I totally agree. It’s just the one obvious factor that many gamers wouldn’t mind losing and would benefit from a lower price and a touch more horsepower too.

        It looks like Microsoft are going to swipe the 8% of resources saved over for the video (not audio) part of the Kinect and try to see if that helps with the frame-rate/resolution debacle they get themselves into pretty much every time.

      • “Kinect is one of the main differences with PS4”

        Except it isn’t. The PS4 Camera does voice commands, face recognition and tracks movement…

  7. I wonder if it could be a special build for the Chinese market, given the amount of piracy that goes on there.

    Otherwise,i’d say there’s a sh*tstorm incoming..

    • I think my money is on that idea too.

  8. Don’t know who this would appeal to. A cheaper disc less version would cost you more having to buy the games at top price from the store.

    If they want to lower the price just remove the camera.

    Wouldn’t say its desperate though, more testing the waters like Sony did with the PSP GO.

    • The PSP GO was released five years after the PSP, the XO has only been out around 3 months. I would definitely say its desperation.

      • They’ve sold 3 million X1’s, they’ve no reason to be desperate.

      • True, but those 3 million XO’s were most likely bought before the performance analysis’s were published. Every head to head is making the XO look worse, so coupling that with it being $100 more expensive as well and things looks worse as time goes on.

      • They’re not desperate with the console but they are most certainly desperate (read: keen) to sort this problem out. They keep on getting bad press about playing second fiddle to the power of the PS4 and even though it’s manifesting in resolution and frame-rate compromises, it’s still garnering bad press each and every time. If they can help that along with a bit of tweaking and also bring in a smarter priced console, then things are standing more shoulder-to-shoulder with Sony’s offering.

      • Yes its sold less than the ps4 but as long as the sales are strong than it doesn’t matter. MS recent financials showed huge profits boosted by the xbox division in particular.

        Re: bad press, most people can make their own minds up without relying on clearly biased press articles.

  9. Man, I’d be super-pissed if I’d recently spent £500+ on an Xbox One just to be faced with the prospect of a cheaper SKU only three months in to the console’s life.

    • I’d be super pissed If I’d recently spent £500+ on and Xbone fullstop…..

    • Pretty much describes my feelings right now. Seems a strange moral that if i hadn’t supported their new console at launch i would have got a better deal. Would love that titanfall console personally

  10. Sounds like they are going to use this to try and temp xboners in a a digital only future……

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