Upgradable Xbox One?

Since the beginning of time the main difference between console gaming and PC gaming has being that consoles have always existed as a static platform, meaning that when a console is released, developers know that the specs and innards will remain the same during the life span of the machine giving them time to understand the tech and get the best out of it over time.  For PC players though things are a little different, they can upgrade there gaming rigs to keep up with changing technology and developers know that they can aim for the highest watermark possible as they are only restricted by the latest up to date tech.

If we look back at the Halo 3 on the 360, which was released early on in the life span of the console and then compare that to Halo 4 which was released years later on the same machine, the difference is staggering, by the time Halo 4 hit the shelves the developers had a massive understanding of the 360's capabilities and we're therefore able to churn more grunt out of it.  The problem here is that by the time Halo 4 came out PC tech was wiping the floor with the 360 in terms of performance and had been for years.

So what happens next, Microsoft release the Xbox One to close the gap on the PC master race and give developers on consoles the chance to make bigger and more believable worlds for us to enjoy, again the problem here is the same, even when both Sony and Microsoft announced the respective specs for both machines, tech on the PC was still miles ahead and by the end of this cycle of consoles, which is still probably 3 – 4 years away, gaming on a PC will be light years ahead of both the Xbox One and the PS4 in terms of scope, graphics, sound and scale.  Christ in 3 – 4 years time your bloody mobile phone will be just as powerful as current day consoles.

As you can see, both Sony and Microsoft have problems now competing with gaming on PC and every single day that goes by they are falling further and further behind.

In step Phil Spencer, head of Xbox for Microsoft, in a recent media event and reported by Polygon the Xbox boss see's things being very different in the future.  Spencer made the following comments at the event.

"We see on other platforms, whether it be mobile or PC, that you get continuous innovation that you rarely see on console, Consoles lock the hardware and the software platform together at the beginning of the generation. Then you ride the generation out for seven or so years, while other ecosystems are getting better, faster and stronger. And then you wait for the next big step function."

He continued: "When you look at the console space, I believe we will see more hardware innovation in the console space than we've ever seen. You'll actually see us come out with new hardware capability during a generation allowing the same games to run backward- and forward-compatible."

"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.

"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."

"Sony is doing this with VR and adding VR capabilities midcycle to the PlayStation 4 and they are doing that by adding another box. I don't mean that as a negative. But it's not changing what the core console is about."

"For consoles in general it's more important now than it's ever been, because you have so many of these other platforms that are around. It used to be that when you bought your console you were way ahead of the price performance curve by so much, relative to a PC. But now PCs are inexpensive and your phones are getting more and more capable."

"I'm not going to announce our road map for hardware," he said. "I want to make sure that people see that what we are doing enables us to be more committed to what consoles are about than we've ever been and innovate more consistently than we ever have. That's the key for me."

If all this means that we are about to see a new spec Xbox One in the near future or a hardware upgrade for the current one still remains to be seen but what it definitely says to me anyway is that Microsoft may be just about to take everything we know about consoles and turn that completely on its head.