Xbox chief Asha Sharma is acknowledging that gaming is becoming too expensive for many people
Xbox says it’s looking into ways to make consoles more affordable amid rising hardware costs.
During a Fortune live event, Xbox boss Asha Sharma talked about the current “crisis” that Xbox and the wider tech industry are facing.
“There’s a shortage of memory and storage, and the costs are exponential. They are usually at this point in the generation, about 50 per cent of the cost, and we’re seeing they’re up 2.75x, they’re up 50% since they started, they’re going to be up effectively 7.5x,” she said.
Because of this, she acknowledged the importance of offer more affordable options for consumers.
“I think we’ve reached a point where it will be hard to imagine that mass audiences can afford thousands of dollars to spend on a console generation, and so I think we will start to see radically different business models that we never expected start to come into orbit later this year.”
One of these options that she floated was companies offering flexibility when it comes to storage and memory, noting that developers will have to “apply new techniques” to compress all of this. “We will have to empower new types of games so they can fit on device,” she noted.
This seems to suggest offering multiple console models with different storage capacities of varying prices. It also could imply that Microsoft is looking to lean even more on its slowly growing Xbox Cloud Gaming business so consumers can stream games to reduce storage constraints.
These comments are especially notable from Sharma because they offer some insight into Xbox’s thought process going into the next console generation. In March, the company confirmed that its next console, codenamed “Project Helix,” will play both Xbox and PC games. And last year, then-Xbox president Sarah Bond teased a more PC-like experience with the new console, suggesting it could be inspired by the Windows-powered Xbox devices like Asus’ ROG Xbox Ally handhelds.
As it stands, there’s been no official word on when Helix will arrive, although AMD corroborated rumours earlier this year that it’s set to release in 2027. But of course, the constantly fluctuating state of the tech sector could delay those plans.
This comes after Xbox had a big showcase during Summer Game Fest over the weekend in which it showed off games like Vancouver-made Gears of War: E-Day, Halo: Campaign Evolved, Persona 4 Revival and a special 25th anniversary Series X and matching controller. During that event, the company stressed that it’s returning to console exclusives following many multiplatform releases, starting with E-Day in October.
MobileSyrup may earn a commission from purchases made via our links, which helps fund the journalism we provide free on our website. These links do not influence our editorial content. Support us here.
Bradly Shankar
Read More