Xbox CEO Says Industry Needs to 'Innovate on Affordability and Efficiency' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted 20 hours ago / 1,295 Views
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma in an interview with BBC discussed the rising costs of memory and storage and how the industry needs to innovate on making devices more affordable.
"As an industry, we're in the middle of Rampocalypse," Sharma said. "All of the industry needs to start to innovate on affordability and efficiency. That is something that we have not had to do [previously].
"But with the crisis that's currently happening in hardware and components, it is absolutely something all of us need to be thinking about and innovating on and giving people more choice in terms of how they play their console and how they purchase their console."
The main reason for the increased costs is the amount of money being spent on AI data centers, which Microsoft is contributing to.
"AI is fundamentally changing a lot of things," said Sharma. "Our job as Xbox, as we continue on in our next generation, is to take into consideration what's happening in the world and build the best experience for our players."
For the next-generation Xbox, codenamed Project Helix, Xbox needs to think about "hardware efficiency in terms of how you use storage and memory, the kind of price per unit, the components, things like that."
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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The problem is making a device that's affordable but still a big enough leap over the current systems to justify it's existence.
It'll be interesting to see if either Sony or MS can pull that off because it sounds like a tall order.
I think you can throw affordable out the window. That’s not happening in the current market.
But even just adding hardware based image reconstruction would be a big win. And all other architectures will have gotten 7-8 years better. There’s no point in selling tech from 2020 anymore.
But hasn't Nintendo been doing this since Wii? Selling a old tech that is one generation or even two behind and coming up with clever new ways to use it? I think it can be done.
I’m saying it is pointless to sell hardware that old when you get a much better price/performance with new architectures. Imagine if Apple was selling iPhones using almost decade old tech. It would be ridiculous.
Switch2is old tech and verry expensive
Nintendo: "Am I a joke to you?"
Innovate? More like remember what it is.
She is almost certainly talking about how Microsoft can monetize and take advantage of the current environment to increase margins. That "how they purchase their console" sounds like financing options where you pay extra for the same product and "hardware efficiency in terms of how you use storage and memory" sounds like cloud gaming.
It just so happens that the increases in price for hardware components is steering the industry toward the future they wanted with the Xbox One.
Best thing to do is keep current gen going for another 7 years. By then the ram crisis should be over and chinese industries would be bringing prices back down to earth .
Considering jow long its takes AAA exclusives to make. We can go another 10 years on current gen.
Imagine getting two gta games this gen, like the good old days
The affordability will likely be widespread payment plans.
Helix will probably be $1000 minimum at launch. If not $1200-$1500.
6-month 12-month and 24-month plans to pay off (with interest of course) will probably occur. Count on that for PS6 as well.
The current consequences of US tariffs and AI around the globe will take a long time to bounce back from if the world economy does. $1000+ consoles are the future.
lmao, Bitch your parent company is a part of the what's causing this Rampocalypse, what is you talking about....hahaha
You know what else the industry needs to innovate on? NOT LAYING OFF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE IN AN ALREADY STRAINED ECONOMY.
She's right but people aren't going to like what some of these "innovations" are lol
