Xbox One consoles could soon be getting optional hardware upgrades to keep up with PCs, according to Xbox head Phil Spencer.
Speaking at last week’s Xbox Spring Showcase, Spencer noted that the company wishes to change the standard thinking of “[riding] the generation out for seven or so years” by releasing optional hardware that boosts the power of its consoles.
“When you look at the console space, I believe we will see more hardware innovation in the console space than we’ve ever seen,” Spencer said. “You’ll actually see us come out with new hardware capability during a generation allowing the same games to run backward and forward compatible because we have a Universal Windows Application running on top of the Universal Windows Platform that allows us to focus more and more on hardware innovation without invalidating the games that run on that platform.”
By doing so, consoles such as the Xbox One can remain closer in power to PCs.
“We can effectively feel a little bit more like we see on PC, where I can still go back and run my old Doom and Quake games that I used to play years ago but I can still see the best 4K games come out and my library is always with me,” he said. “Hardware innovation continues while the software innovation is able to take advantage and I don’t have to jump a generation and lose everything that I played on before.”