Possible Xbox One Hardware Upgrade in the Pipeline, Says Phil Spencer

I wonder if this was something the console developers maybe always had in mind. One of the biggest pros of console gaming is that a console is much cheaper vs buying a computer. May this will become a new trend. Think you just need to drop like $400-500 on a console, but then find out a year or two later you need to buy a seperate $400-500 attachment to boost graphics or perhaps increase processing power. It's like Sony and their $400 VR attachment. I guessing they are hoping most customers will think "well, it's been a while since I got my PS4 so this is fine"

I've been hoping something like this would happen for a while.... then again- aside from RAM there really aren't many inexpensive components that would serve as a substantial upgrade..... unless, perhaps, Sony or Microsoft cut a deal where a custom gpu or cpu could be made in huge numbers.... maybe getting price down enough to make this possible. If i remember correctly the PS4 cpu and gpu are comparable to a decent, couple year-old gaming pc..... the problem is a 200 buck gpu wouldn't be a massive upgrade but jumping up to gtx 960/970 levels can get up to where it's getting too expensive to justify a console upgrade.... even 200 would be steep. Shoving extra ram would be cheap but you get rapidly diminishing returns when you keep adding more. If you could somehow subsidize the cost by getting something back on the existing gpu it would suddenly be much more reasonable but there are likely piles of reasons why that won't work. Oh..... maybe an SLI/Crossfire situation would work.... just add a second "just alright" graphics card to gain substantial "oomph". Then again i imagine the boards in question won't allow it.

I think it's a great idea. The chances of it working well are very sound. The chances of Microsoft ever actually delivering on it.. different story.

Look at this cool Xbox concept!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am8Xt9UBJFA

nintendo had something like that on the 64

This defeats the whole purpose of being a console. People use consoles because they're not familiar or comfortable or able to upgrade their PC They just hand over money, get their machine, and they're good to go for a number of years with a machine guaranteed to function properly and run the games they buy for it without having to evaluate specs for each game individually.

Being said, how do you propose to upgrade a console? If you give players the freedom to install any type of hardware (and I don't even want to get into the concept of upgrading the CPU and GPU, all of which are integrated directly into the motherboard and not actually upgradeable) than there's going to be compatibility issues with case sizing as well as functionality with various games while releasing proprietary upgrade software will undoubtedly cost a fortune (seeing as how Microsoft couldn't even give it's fanbase a 120GB HDD on the 360 without it costing a small fortune.) If you simply release another machine with better hardware already packaged in, it's simply a new console (made even worse if you continue to call it the Xbox One because it will run into the same issue that the Wii U had. Everybody will think it's the same device or just some add-on and nobody will buy it.)

Remember, you're catering to console gamers. Most people who main consoles are morons, children, and clueless parents and all you're going to do is confuse everybody and shoot yourself in the foot with this approach.

The evolution of consoles...... Trying to make them emulate PCs.... Why not just PC?

Phil, just make your consoles and let it last every 10 years or so, then repeat the cycle. There is a reason why people buy consoles (So they don't have to upgrade their pcs every few months).

Trust me no one wants that, or they will leave and go to the other guys.

This is great.

Straight from the horses mouth... the consoles are underpowered from the getgo. But if they do this why would I go with proprietary hardware and pay for online and have all the restrictions when you can go pc and be free of all that. Any arguments console gamers have about an even playing field due to hardware is null in void anyway if consoles goes this route.

my xbox one has been acting up abit, its been beeping and ejecting the game disc out randomly for the last 2 - 3 days... anyone hear anything about that before ?... i got power saving mode on.. so its not on standby... i got no kinnect so didn't voice activate it by accident... and i only got 1 controller and its sitting comfortably on the table next to the console so i didn't bump it by accident... anyone got any suggestions ? for now i took the disc out hoping if it has nothing to eject then it'll stay off hahaha

Unless they make a modular system I don't see how that is going to happen. In which case why even bother with a console when you can just buy a PC?

I'm sure as hell not buying a console every three years just so developers can make games shinier and increasingly boring.

The reason PC is backwards compatible is because the actual system itself hasn't changed in design that much over the years. They have simply added better hardware to the existing PC design. It has nothing to do with how the hardware advances.

It is just that previous consoles were designed with custom hardware architecture and software to go with it. So emulating a PS3 is like trying to figure out the Divinchi Code. It is almost like the designers were being deliberately obtuse and makes the process borderline impossible.

Emulating PS4 on the other hand shouldn't be needed at all if they stick to DDR5 memory and a standard system design. All they'll need to do is slam a patch into the games to make some tweaks and it should run on the new hardware. Faster than it did previously as well.

Not to mention the patches will be created by the developers. Unlike on PC where most patches are just mods created by a fan and is a pot luck as to whether it will be any good or not.

First micro upgrade - make games look as good as those on the PS4. Pre-order today and save $50

I guess Micro$oft is hurting for money (sarcasm) if they are introducing hardware upgrades because were they not hyping this cloud gaming thing out the wazoo that it would make your XBOX One like 20x more powerful and it seems they haven't mentioned that as much for quite sometime. Probably because they want the consumer to forget all about cloud gaming so they don't need to pay for extra servers and gouge the customer for extra hardware sales. Sounds kinda like the 360 launch console "if" you want wireless wifi you need to buy this adapter for 100 bucks and "if" you want it to play HD DVDs then you need to buy this extra peripheral to play them for $250 bucks in Canada.

Why are people not seeing how easy this would be to implement? In the same way that a pc game has a minimum requirement, the standard Xbox one would be the minimum requirement. The upgraded x1 would provide higher resolutions such as 4K or offer 60fps. No need for separate games, easy to implement and adjust according to the hardware you own, just like with a pc. Simple really

Noo just Nooooo, when that happens you fragment the console space and that one of the uniqueness of console all X1 is equal, all ps4 is equal and so on and it allows dev development that much easier... Upgrade-able parts of a hardware should remain a pc thing sorry..

Once you come out with new hardware person are less likely to buy the upgrade, its the same reason a majority of pc are low to mid range base...

Keep forcing the issue to buy a new upgrade we already have a choice to upgrade or don't when a new hardware is released.. opening upgrade-able hardware is more work for dev, now they'll have to optimize for the lesser hardware as well as the top piece of upgrade..

They are just being lazy and cheap, and think console games want to be like pc gamers.. First they want to change the console cycle from 5yrs and now this..

Why shouldn't I just buy a Win 10 PC then? In general i'm all for Phil Spencer, he really went above and beyond to improve XBOX but it seems to me that they are trying to enter full PC territory. A very tricky territory mind you, which already has thousands of upgrade options and seemingly, MS's support via the Win 10 store.

It kinda loses the already hindered advantage consoles had over PC, just plug them and play. No options, optimaizations etc all in an easy and simple ecosystem.

Whatever the long term plan MS has, I trust it enough because of Phil. MS's last great leader was Peter Moore, look at MS after he left, starting going downhill. That's my ONLY concern, how long will Phil be in charge? Can these plans come to true fruition without him at the helm?

I do hope they at least upgrade the HDMI ports to make it compatible with incoming hardware. Without HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2, they're gonna suck pretty hard for people with 4K setups. It'd be nice to see the XBox One upscaling to 4K

I'm holding off to get XBOX ONE, but I will.

smart man

This is exactly what I want. I knew Xbox was moving in this direction. Its why I am digital only now.

Would be nice to see a PS4 and Xbox One both pumping out 4K one day

This is a really interesting move from microsoft. Certainly leverages the PC side if things and stands to mix up the console space.

The potential for platform iteration will mean we won't have the specs limiting Devs as they often do on console. And if the Xbox and PC play well together then it means more games will head to Xbox.

Your move Sony.

I think I'd rather just spend $400 every 4 years for a new console with the following requirements: Every game is BC for the last 2 gens, hd comes with enough space to last 4 years and/or external HD support, ability to use previous gen controller... A console that last 4 years at $400 is still cheaper than upgrading the gpu, possibly cpu, ram, and hd. Not sure how upgrading your console is going to benefit anyone in terms of savings. This whole cloud based crackdown stuff won't be feasible until the rest of the world can use it. Global wifi from satellites? Possibly. N64 was the last system to require an upgrade to play certain games and it was a free upgrade.

Very good news. I hope to becomes a standard to have console hardware that I can expand.

Hardware upgrades on consoles don't work and do nothing but fracture what was once a unified market.

If a dev makes a game for a 2nd generation XB1 what happens with the people that didn't upgrade? If they do end up releasing a hardware upgrade they better make sure ALL games work on ALL versions of the console, both new and old. If MS doesn't make it mandatory that all games work on all versions of the console it would be a failure of absolutely devastating proportions.

Tread lightly with this one Phil.

100% agreed. The last time a console was upgradeable -- and it was actually popularly used -- was the Sega Genesis, IIRC.

Using extensions to the PCIe bus is the way to go here -- use a standard, not some proprietary garbage, either.