What a week it has been for Xbox fans. First, the news comes out that console-exclusive games might appear on PlayStation consoles. This is swiftly followed by rumors of Microsoft exiting the console market entirely. All this panic may be in vain though because Intel is reportedly pressing hard to win over the contract for the new Xbox, which would be a monumental win for its fledging Arc technology and regain some public favor.
AMD has provided the APU for both the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, while Nvidia and Intel sat and watched from the sidelines for some time. Intel recently agreed to enter the handheld gaming PC market with the MSI Claw but has never shown much public interest in home consoles save for the original Xbox.
Now, according to a Moore’s Law is Dead stream from February 2, AMD has tied up two contracts with Sony to produce the next PlayStation home console and a portable handheld while Xbox sits with nothing in the pipeline.
This has reportedly left the door open to both Intel and Nvidia, but the green team is currently showing little interest in reuniting with Xbox the way it did for its first Xbox console.
It’s worth noting that this is purely based on information Moore’s Law is Dead claims to have and not a guarantee in any way. One caveat to the information they provide is that Microsoft is allegedly notorious for shopping around before locking into hardware contracts, and this stretches beyond just Xbox consoles.
This means that a future deal with AMD is not off the table, but also the possibility that no new hardware is due at all is still a potential outcome. Giving further support to his claims that Intel is pushing hard for a deal with Microsoft, MLID goes on to say that Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger sees a possible deal with Xbox as a “Hail Mary pass for saving Arc”.
Time will tell whether there are any legs to this development, and we expect that next week’s ‘business update’ from Xbox may only spin the rumor mill further.
It would be interesting to see Intel and AMD take their fight to make the best gaming CPU to the console market, but in the meantime, you can check out some of the best PC controllers to see which console companions make the best PC gaming peripherals.