Xbox’s new chief strategy officer Matthew Ball has discussed how the company is now rethinking their future hardware plans and Project Helix, as Microsoft looks to navigate the current component cost crisis that is being spurred on by the “AI” industry… An AI industry which, let us not forget, Microsoft has had a significant hand in creating.
Per GameSpot, Ball said, “The crisis is not yet getting better,” in reference to current hardware supply, but also that “We are very cognizant of the ways in which we need the change as a company to make sure it is affordable, to make sure that it’s flexible. We are working hard to rethinking what that console model can look like, not in an exclusionary way, but in an additive way, so that as we take a look at this crisis, which may have acute effects for 2-2.5 years.”
What this means is a long way from being clear. Under the previous leadership, the next Xbox was rumoured to be targeting a broader more PC-like approach, allowing for rival digital storefronts such as Steam to enter the market. With Xbox now reconsidering their position on game exclusivity, and having reversed course with Xbox Game Pass pricing (after losing “millions” of subscribers, Ball admits) could they also rethink their plan and stick with the current single store position?
Gears of War E-Day is now a full Xbox exclusive
Ball could also be referring to the hardware capabilities and raw specs. The Xbox Series X, for example, has a larger and therefore more expensive chip than the PS5, having opted for a GPU with more compute units at a lower clock speed. It also has 16GB of RAM, 10GB of which runs faster than the PS5. On the other hand, the SSD used in the Series X is slower than that of the PS5. It’s all tradeoffs, but with AI companies putting pressure on RAM and storage in particular, the hardware team could be looking at a smaller, higher-clocked GPU, less RAM, perhaps a sacrifice on some AI processing aspects, and more. This would not be a small change and would take time.
“We are working very hard to figure out the best way to navigate it or a way that works for everyone, that does not ask too much from players, but also does detract from the other investments that we need to make as a company,” he added. “We also have tens of millions of people who we ask to spend $500 which is still an incredible sum of money. Those people that we asked to buy a console years ago, we still have an obligation to them to meet their expectations and to have them feel rewarded for which platform they chose.”
Unfortunately for Ball, he’s committed a classic politician faux pas of not knowing the cost of a loaf of bread. Xbox Series X isn’t $500 anymore and hasn’t been for over a year when Microsoft bumped up prices around the world. The current price of a full-fat Xbox Series X in the US is $650.
Despite the price rises, and in a related point, Ball noted that demand for Xbox consoles is outpacing their supply. “We are producing them as quickly as possible. These is a severe limitation to how quickly we can do that, but it’s not a question of appetite.”
It might be ludicrous to think that Microsoft, of all companies, could be struggling with pricing and demand, but that’s not the reality of modern hardware manufacturing. Companies have to lock in their production capacity in advance, and given how this generation has panned out, Microsoft would have a smaller assignment and smaller contracted supplies of RAM and other components than Sony has for the PS5.
And again, Microsoft has a massive hand in the current situation, investing massively in OpenAI, splashing cash on plans for new server farms, shoving Copilot AI into anything and everything they can in Windows 11 (and now backtracking on that because people don’t like and/or use it).
But Ball is a “strategic optimist”, and after discussions with the senior leadership, “All of that bolstered my confidence from the original disposition of strategic optimism. If we can turn this company around and grow it, do better by our players, and we need to do that, and we are; we languished for several years.”
Source: GameSpot
