It has only been a few years since the launch of the current generation of video game consoles, with the two-year anniversary of the Xbox Series X|S and Sony PlayStation 5 earlier this month. But already we are hearing talk about the next round of consoles thanks to Microsoft’s recent response to the CMA issues statement that was published on October 14th.
In this filing, Microsoft states that “Ineed (sic) the next new generation of consoles are not expected to be released before the fall of 2028 at the very earliest.” (see section 3.80 of the document.)
The comment was made in reference to the CMA’s stated concern in regards to how Microsoft’s ownership of the Call of Duty franchise could affect Sony when the next generation of consoles come to launch:
“The impact of any foreclosure strategy on Sony may be particularly strong at the launch of the next generation of consoles, when both new and existing users decide which console to buy.”
Microsoft’s response points out that this “only occurs approximately every eight years,”
If Sony were indeed worried about a hypothetical withholding of Activision content, it would have at the very least six years to prepare a competitive response in time for the launch of the next generation of console. Given the backward compatibility of consoles, it is possible to multi-home across console generations (e.g., to use an Xbox Series X to access Call of Duty and a new generation PlayStation console to access PlayStation exclusives).
At any rate, judging by these statements we shouldn’t expect to get our hands on 10th-gen hardware until Fall 2028 at the earliest. Which sounds about right given that the previous generation of consoles (Xbox One, PS4) lasted seven years, from a 2013 launch up to the November 2020 release of the current gen consoles. But at least we’ll have all-but-guaranteed mid-generation hardware revisions to look forward to in the meantime.
Via Pure Xbox.
