"It's a great time" to own an Xbox One and it's only going to get better, says outgoing Microsoft executive

According to Marc Whitten, who left his high-ranking post at Microsoft last week after nearly two decades with the company, now is a great time to own an Xbox One and the platform experience is only going to improve over time.

"Part of what's awesome to me right now is I think you're starting to see what Xbox One can become," Whitten said during the latest episode of Major Nelson Radio.

Recalling the conception of the Xbox One architecture, Whitten said the device was designed to accommodate many vast changes and updates over time.

"So much for us was around, 'Hey, let's build this architecture that we could rev quickly, that we could add to, that was flexible, that would allow us to do more things and do more things quickly,'" he said.

One way in which the Xbox One stands to become more feature-rich over time, Whitten said, is through its utilization of Microsoft's cloud functionality. This wasn't available on Xbox 360, he reminded us.

"It's a great time to be on Xbox...and it's just beginning," Whitten said. "There's so many things. I can't wait to see where it goes from here."

Earlier this month, Xbox director of product planning Albert Penello said there are "lots of cool things" coming to Xbox One. And before that, DayZ creator Dean Hall said after meeting with Microsoft to discuss a port of his zombie game, he said he was shown some "really interesting" Xbox One features that he was not permitted to discuss publicly.

Microsoft has not laid out a roadmap of new features for Xbox One, but one possibility is a full-game streaming service similar to Sony's PlayStation Now, which Penello told GameSpot at PAX Prime is something that Microsoft's Azure cloud servers are capable of delivering. Microsoft also intends to one day bring back its ambitious Family Sharing plan for digital Xbox One games. On top of that, Microsoft plans to extend its Games with Gold service to Xbox One in the future.

Whitten was hired by Microsoft right out of college in 1997 and worked on the Windows team before joining the Xbox division in 2000. He was involved with the launch of the original Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and the Xbox Live platform. His last day at Microsoft was March 21 and he's now working as chief product officer at audio company Sonos.