The great Microsoft leak continues as part of its lawsuit against the FTC. A new document details all of the firm’s gaming projects for the next generation of console.
After the revelations of details on the next refresh of the Xbox Series you will have the right to their entire vision.
A future Xbox between the cloud and local
We have observed in recent generations that Microsoft has tended to unify its entire gaming ecosystem within the Xbox brand. The name no longer represents just a simple console, but a whole approach that links hardware, the cloud, services, technologies, games and even studios. For Microsoft, whether it is gaming on PC, tablet, mobile or console, Xbox must be a key player in the industry, regardless of the medium.
And to achieve this vision, Microsoft is obviously already thinking about the next generation of consoles, the one planned for 2028 and which will exploit the most recent innovations in terms of hardware on the one hand, and graphics technologies on the other hand. After a timid (and unconvincing, it must be said) launch of its xCloud cloud gaming service in beta in 2019, this next generation should rely on hybrid operation between local and cloud gaming. Here we imagine games which will not be entirely rendered by your console, but certain components of which can be streamed via the cloud.
The next Xbox could integrate future AMD chips planned for 2026 (Zen 6 for the CPU and Navi 5 for the GPU). The document speaks in particular of “big cores” and “small cores” processors, i.e. a transition to the big.LITTLE format found in the ARM architecture, mixing high-performance and economical cores. Microsoft is also reportedly hesitating to completely switch to ARM for its future CPU and is leaving itself until 2026 to make its choice. This future architecture will obviously serve the latest graphic developments in terms of ray tracing (and so path tracing) and dynamic global illumination, which are currently the exception of a few large productions, but should become essential within five years.
The future of gaming accelerated by AI
Artificial intelligence will obviously cross all spheres of gaming in the years to come, from how games are designed, to how they are optimized and even how to play them. Microsoft plans to integrate an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) dedicated to machine learning tasks into its next console, similar to what Apple and Nvidia offer on their own chips.
Here, the firm intends to use the power of AI to improve the in-game experience. The document notably cites an upcoming “Super Resolution” running on the basis of a neural network, its own competitor to gaming solutions. upscaling of the market which are DLSS from Nvidia, FSR from AMD and XeSS from Intel. An initiative that has its source in the Video Super Resolution function launched by Microsoft at the beginning of the year to improve the quality of videos played on its Edge browser. Microsoft is also reportedly considering its own image interpolation technology, similar to Nvidia’s Frame Generation and AMD’s future Fluid Motion.
Serving creators
Finally, when AI is not used to reduce your latency in the middle of a game or to decide your ranking in a competitive game, it will help game creators to design ever more immersive open worlds for Microsoft. The document reveals several ongoing projects within the company to facilitate the production of ever more ambitious gaming experiences.
Microsoft is reportedly working on procedural content generation solutions for its studios as well as intelligent dialogue generation technologies during interactions with NPCs (non-player characters), similar to what Nvidia plans to offer. with its Avatar Cloud Engine presented at Gamescom 2023. AI should also be exploited in the crucial video game testing phase, to, one imagines, accelerate tasks related to Quality Assurance (QA). Not sure that such news would please an entire profession which is just beginning to unionize.
Microsoft’s plans are in line with the current paradigm of an industry consolidating around ecosystems. Nintendo, Sony, Epic and even Valve have also adopted this approach, each trying to differentiate themselves by innovating on the services, technologies and experiences offered to players. In this context, the acquisition of Activision – Blizzard by Microsoft seems to be the last piece it is missing to realize its vision.