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Xbox Founding Team Member Says Xbox Hardware Is 'Dead' (videogameschronicle.com)

(Monday June 30, 2025 @11:20AM (msmash) from the writing-on-the-wall dept.)


A founding member of the Xbox team says she believes Xbox hardware is "dead" and that Microsoft [1]appears to be planning a "slow exit" from the gaming hardware business. Microsoft recently announced partnerships with external hardware companies including the ROG Xbox Ally, which runs Windows and functions as a portable PC that can run games from external stores like Steam.

Laura Fryer, one of Microsoft Game Studios' first employees who worked as a producer on the original Gears of War games and served as director of the Xbox Advanced Technology Group, called the partnerships evidence of Microsoft's inability to ship hardware. "Personally, I think Xbox hardware is dead. The plan appears to be to just drive everybody to Game Pass," Fryer said.



[1] https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/i-think-xbox-hardware-is-dead-says-microsoft-gaming-veteran/


Portable hardware (Score:2)

by Dan East ( 318230 )

From what I can tell, she's talking about Microsoft's disinterest or inability to create mobile hardware, and that MS is instead potentially licensing the XBox brand / OS / software stack to other manufactures that are already making portable gaming devices. She sees this as the decline of the Xbox I guess, even though MS has already stated there will be a next gen Xbox at some point.

I'm no expert in this arena, but Xbox has always had a pretty healthy market share even though its competitors had mobile off

Re: (Score:3)

by fropenn ( 1116699 )

Except for Nintendo, selling gaming hardware is a money loser (https://www.pcmag.com/news/microsoft-loses-up-to-200-on-every-xbox-console-sold). And modern tablets, phones, and mini-desktops are so fast and powerful that most people already have a sufficient gaming device with them all the time. So it seems this might be part of a broader strategy by Microsoft to focus on services and software side of things and to let someone else take the risk on device manufacturing.

Re: (Score:2)

by Junta ( 36770 )

I think it's a reasonable extrapolation.

Microsoft's historical strengths have been associated with enabling third parties.

Nokia, Surface, and xBox seemed to be them pining for a more Apple-like model where they just call all the shots up and down the stack.

Given that Nokia is dead, Surface is kind of de-emphasized, and xBox has started to see use as a brand for PC gaming, accessories, and partners... It's not a huge leap that the'll just delegate the brand to the OEMs on hardware execution as the software s

wince (Score:1)

by Anonymous Coward

Very few games were written to use WinCE, most were written to Sega's own API. That said MSFT's troubles stemmed almost entirely from (a) GamePass which seemed like a success in the short run but ended up sucking up all the oxygen for third party games and which put a cap on the size of the market and (b) the series S which is the more popular model (and thus cannot be abandoned) but is also weaker than all the other consoles and PCs on the market (except Switch which is its own thing) meaning the Xbox is a

Re: wince (Score:2)

by reanjr ( 588767 )

I blame their marketing. I still don't know what the latest XBox is, or which are the model varieties, or whether the device sitting on my entertainment center is one generation behind or two. And I've been a consumer of XBox stuff for decades.

On the other hand, I know PS5 is the latest PlayStation, and that it's three generations ahead of my PS2.

And as long as I need to go online to use my console, I will stick to PC. Nintendo was the last hold out, but now even they have abandoned offline games.

Re: (Score:2)

by Saffaya ( 702234 )

There are only few hardware I love more than the DreamCast, but honestly, I can't imagine why you are saying Microsoft is the reason for SEGA exiting the console hardware business.

The real reason was SONY having made an excellent fist console, the PSX, and lying in gigantic proportions about the upcoming sequel, the PS2, in order to effectively cut all momentum for the DreamCast sales.

Damn lies by SONY included:

_It will do Toy Story graphics in real time!

Do I have to explain the extent of this lie?

_It will

Re: sega dreamcast (Score:2)

by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

Microsoft helped design the Dreamcast, which had only notional security and was destroyed in part by piracy. They then went on to design their own console with stronger security, although that was also completely defeated.

Yes, Sony's lies were relevant, but there were multiple factors at work. Sega failing at designing the Saturn ("pile of chips on a board") also set them up to fail completely without a win on Dreamcast.

Just ... (Score:2)

by PPH ( 736903 )

... pining for the fjords.

The Switch 2 is a major problem for them (Score:3)

by rsilvergun ( 571051 )

And for Sony too. It's massively underpowered compared to a PS5 but good enough is good enough.

Sony at least has a half full of exclusives. They're the only game in town for baseball. And they have the last of us, Horizon, God of War, Astro boy and ratchet & clank.

The only thing Microsoft has is Forza.

So basically at some point in time as a kid you start wanting an Xbox or a PS5 so you can play call of duty with your friends because it runs better there. Assuming there aren't networking issues than the switch 2 hardware more or less solves that.

I don't think the difference between 4K gaming and 1080p gaming is enough to drive a huge number of upgrades. Back in the day I remember getting up pretty big edge out of going from 320x240 to 640 by 480 all the way up to 1024x768 playing Duke nukem and Shadow warrior. Shadow warrior especially because the weapons would Auto Target and the effect was more pronounced to the further away you were on the map.

There are some advantages to a more stable image here in there at distance but once you get to 1080p you have to be really hardcore to notice. Like shmup players they can notice an extra two milliseconds of lag.

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