So Graceful It was Almost in Slow Motion
With the impending launch of Microsoft’s Xbox One X, consumers are wondering just how long the One X lifespan is going to be. After all, you wouldn’t want to invest significant capital in a product that’s only barreling towards being obsolete, right?
When asked about the lifespan of the Xbox One X, Senior Director Albert Penello assured consumers that “we care a lot about compatibility, we have a huge effort around compatibility, and that’s not just backwards compatibility.” Savvy readers will notice that this in no way answers the question at hand. But don’t worry! He goes on to elaborate his position, adding that “I’m certainly not an advocate of ‘we’re going to do a new console every year’, but consumers are more used to this idea that they can buy devices with different performance levels, when a new generation of hardware comes out, their old stuff still works.” In other words, it’s okay that people are constantly dropping hundreds of dollars on sexier versions of existing hardware, so long as the previous version still functions.
So, we’ve no idea what the lifespan of Microsoft’s newest machine will be. Penello isn’t on board with constant upgrades, but apparently customers are. Keep this in mind when the next version, Xbox One XXX, drops sometime in 2019.