Xbox's Phil Spencer Says No Mid-Gen Xbox Needed, Doesn't 'Love' Baldur's Gate 3 Launching On PlayStation First

During this year's Gamescom event, Xbox head Phil Spencer addressed the future trajectory of the current generation of Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Xbox consoles and the potential for a mid-generation refresh.

In an interview with Eurogamer, Spencer offered his perspective: "As soon as you start doing mid-gen refreshes, you’ve got a bunch of issues in front of developers, on what platform they target."

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Spencer added: "And it starts to feel a lot more like PC — which is clearly a good ecosystem that’s healthy, but then I’m like, ‘Okay, well, what’s the difference then between console and PC, if we’re in this mode of every two years, a new GPU comes out, or CPU?'"

While Xbox's boss had already expressed his lack of urgency for a mid-generation console back in June, he reaffirmed his opinion in response to Sony Group Corp.'s (NYSE: SONY) recent introduction of new products.

These include the PlayStation Portal and rumors of the upcoming launch of an upgraded version of the PlayStation 5 featuring a removable disc drive.

Moreover, in dialogue with IGN, Spencer clarified that Xbox's team is more focused on improving the storage capabilities of the Xbox Series S.

"We're focused right now on the increased storage Xbox Series S," he said. "But no, like I said, we're kind of at the end of the beginning in my mind. So I think we need to let devs settle on this hardware and get the most out of it.

The Carbon Black edition of the Xbox Series S, equipped with a 1TB SSD, is set to make its debut on Sept. 6, 2023, just in time for the anticipated release of Starfield. The price tag for this enhanced version will be $349.99.

Spencer Addresses Baldur's Gate 3 PS5 Release Ahead Of Xbox Series X/S

Meanwhile, the CEO of Microsoft Gaming also addressed the fact that the popular Baldur's Gate 3 will be released on PS5 before Xbox Series X/S.

Baldur’s Gate 3, developed by Larian Studios, became available on PC in August and is scheduled for a PS5 release in early September. However, the release date for the Xbox Series X and S versions is yet to be announced.

The delay for the Xbox version is attributed to difficulties in optimizing the game's two-player split-screen co-op for the less powerful but more affordable Xbox Series S. Microsoft enforces a policy that demands gameplay feature parity across both the Xbox Series X and S.

"I want games to launch on both platforms [Series X/S]. There are feature differences between the two platforms, but we have the ability to handle that and how it works," Spencer told IGN. 

"We want to make sure that games when they're launching on competitive platforms are also launching on Xbox, so we are going to learn from this experience as well, cause we don't love that."

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Photo: Miguel Lagoa on Shutterstock and photo courtesy eVRydayVR on Flickr