Of course the news of a new Xbox and Playstation console in the works is not as surprising as one might think. The current new consoles, Xbox One & Playstation 4, began development right around the time that the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 were released. So the news of Sony and Microsoft working on a new console already is all that surprising.
What is surprising though is how quickly these companies hope to release their new consoles. Seven to eight years passed between the Xbox 360/Playstation 3 release and Xbox One/Playstation 4 release, so to hear of a new console release this early in the life of the Xbox One/Playstation 4 is odd to say the least.
Of course a majority of this comes from rumors and speculations that arose from several press conferences held by several different companies.
AMD, the company behind the making of the APU of both the Xbox One and Playstation 4, along with the Wii U, stated at a Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Technology Conference that their clients, presumably Microsoft and Sony, are already looking into future products involving the cooperation of AMD.
That by itself is not much to go on, but by referring to these products as ‘next-gen’ brought a whole whirlwind of speculation that new consoles is what they will be working on.
They also added that given that these clients approached them early in the development process means that they will most likely be shortening the life cycles of each new generation of gaming consoles.
According to a break down of console development that AMD provided, “Our customers are already thinking about what comes next. These are long life cycle products and as you know in the semi-custom space, you start with — three years before you introduce a product, a decision is made to use a particular company.”
Given that the assumed clients are Microsoft and Sony, this early involvement with a specific company may mean that the next-gen consoles are well on their way.
In case any of you want to do the math. We’ll put the releases between the Xbox 360/Playstation 3 at 8 years. The current generation of consoles, Xbox One/Playstation 4, have been out for 2 years. So with the early 1 year lead in contacting and aligning themselves with a company, that leaves the possible release of a new console at around….5 more years? I don’t know. I’m not a math guy.
Another bit of news came very early in the release of the Xbox One/Playstation 4, which came in the form of a new job listing for Microsoft. A job listing on the Microsoft website was placed in search of someone, “…who want to help [Microsoft] create next generation entertainment hardware…”
This listing was, as previously stated, very early in the release of the current generation of consoles, so many who read the job listing assumed it was probably for a redesigning of the Xbox One rather than a whole new Xbox console. However, there is no doubt that creating the next big console is on the minds of both of these companies.