Xbox Veteran Laura Fryer: 'I Think Xbox Hardware is Dead' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 July 2025 / 5,403 Views
Laura Fryer, one of first employees at Microsoft Game Studios, in a recent video discussed the current state and possible future of Xbox as Microsoft pushes for a more multiplatform strategy.
"Obviously, as one of the founding members of the Xbox team, I’m not pleased with where things are today. I don’t love watching all of the value that I helped create slowly get eroded away," she said (via VideoGamesChronicle).
"I’m sad because from my perspective, it looks like Xbox has no desire or literally can’t ship hardware anymore. So this [ROG Ally] partnership is about a slow exit from the hardware business completely."
She continued, "Personally, I think Xbox hardware is dead. The plan appears to be to just drive everybody to Game Pass. And let’s be clear, it has a lot of value. I’m thinking that might be why they decided to charge $80 for Outer Worlds 2… And here’s the thing, maybe it will work.
"Xbox has a deep portfolio. The remake of Oblivion was obviously a huge success, and they can continue to outsource that work to external companies and make a lot of money releasing their older games. Older games from an era when Xbox knew how to build them.
"But what is the long-term plan? Where are the new hits? What will make people care about the Xbox 25 years from now? I was excited to see Clockwork Revolution in the showcase, but will something like that be enough? Do they have more?
"Next year marks the 25th anniversary of the Xbox, and I’m sure that they will have some big announcements and plans for honoring the milestone. Maybe next year is the year. Maybe next year is the year that the fog will clear and all of us will see the beauty in these latest announcements. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see."
Microsoft has begun releasing more Xbox games on other platforms like the PlayStation 5. This includes games that were once console exclusive to Xbox.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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They literally just announced a partnership with AMD for "First party consoleS"
Right. We know that at the moment they don't plan to get out of the console business. But what is their plan to actually sell consoles? It's very confusing. They should come out and tell us what it is that they're thinking.
I feel like if they really want to stay in the console business, for the next generation they have to be willing to take a big loss on the hardware so that they can sell the most powerful system at a price that is significantly lower than PlayStation. And then they need to keep it that way for the entirety of the generation. That might give them a big generation, and put them seriously back in the conversation. But, if they're just going to sell similar stuff for a similar price, and then release their first party software on competing platforms, what is the reason for anyone to buy an Xbox?
They said they are not abandoning consoles. They have repeated themselves so many times. People just don't listen
There's heaps of reason and one alone is gamepass. Why. Buy PlayStation to play Xbox games and pay if you can get in gamepass.
Also if the rumors are true and next Xbox has steam , epic gog and all of store then Xbox will be the best console to play all games
They are making another home console except this time, it will access all the PC gaming apps ontop of Xboxes own.
Unlikely. They have already signaled they are designing and building the hardware in collaboration with AMD.
Xbox Series is probably set to hit about 40~ million consoles sold lifetime, which is a drop from Xbox One... And the height of the Xbox 360.
...But even if it only managed 30~ million consoles, if it's a profitable business venture, then it's still successful.
Personally, I'll buy the next Xbox only on the provision it has an Optical drive for backwards compatibility, that's my -only- requirement.
At the moment I am buying less games though for Xbox... I have about 40~ Xbox Series X games on physical media, this time last generation (Xbox One) I had over 150 games.
The digital-only word is actually making me do less purchases, I want Oblivion remastered for example, but I want it on Disc... And I want a physical map like the Xbox 360 release, but that didn't eventuate so it's a lost sale.
Yup, the signs have been there for a long time now. They just don't know how to exit without creating an uproar, so they keep going through the motions for the time being. And they have to fulfill contracts that have been put in place some time ago.
"People are saying that the marketing team will be hit in the upcoming layoffs, but if I were working on a game that didn't make the showcase I would be very worried." Perfect Dark and Everwild were just cancelled. Laura called it perfectly.
Of course.
Yeah. After the massive price rises I decided that I'm not even going to talk about Xbox anymore as a competitor platform. What's the point?
And yet you're here.
Commenting at each news about them.
I am convinced you could come on here and say puppies are cute, and people would down-vote you. The administration team should really fix this system. Either that, or disable it altogether.
It's ok they're just downvotes.
Yeah, I know. And it really only looks bad on the people doing it. But still. A person's comment should be judged on a comment-to-comment basis, not carpet-banned simply because of some adolescent bias.
Upvotes and downvotes on this site are like points on "Who's Line Is It Anyway?". They don't matter because they are paid for by subscribers who have the ability to upvote or downvote 4 times with a single account.
I didn't know that. Quite unfortunate.
Shes salty bad. Sorry hun, your toy is old and it's time to let it evolve.
I remind me to the people who sayed after the activision Blizzard deal "R.I.P Playstation"
