Next-Gen Xbox Coming in 2028 With AMD Zen 6 and RDNA5

The Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 have been out for a while now, and it’s not like anyone expected these to be the last of their respective iterations. With consoles largely falling into a pattern of release, then a pro version of some sort, then the next generation, spanning roughly 5-7 years each cycle, give or take. Microsoft Xbox Series X/S looks set to the be main run up until 2028 according to papers filed with the FTC.

In a slide titled “From “Zero Microsoft” to “Full Microsoft,” they revealed some plans for the next-gen Xbox. It’ll feature co-developed hardware, software, and cloud compute services, and given it’s nearly 4-5 years away, it’ll be quite a power increase on the current generation, no doubt about that. Microsoft say it’ll be “a next generation hybrid game platform capable of leveraging the combined power of the client and cloud to deliver deeper immersion and entirely new classes of game experiences.”

Microsoft looks set to tap into the content creator market more than ever, allowing more features to play, stream and create your content from a single ecosystem, likely using cloud services to improve live streaming and video editing functions.

Of course, the hardware is what we really care for, and it looks like AMD is on the bill again for a semi-custom SoC, but it’s unclear if this will be Arm or X86-64, but I suspect X86-64 and the use of the future AMD Zen 6 architecture, it just seems like the more logical evolution. Zen 5 is set to release next year, and Zen 6 in 2027-28, so that all works out quite nicely.

Furthermore, with AMD putting up their Navi 5 GPU technology, which again we suspect will use RDNA5 graphics tech, which like the CPUs is two generations of hardware away from the current RDNA3 hardware that’s on the market. However, Microsoft wants a strong focus on NPU hardware for on-board AI acceleration, but I think that’s a given seen as upscaling and AI processing are hot stuff these days.

With Microsoft also set to release their next-generation DirectX API over the next few years, their slides talk about “next generation” DXR, with micropolygon rendering, super-resolution tech and AI, as well as a next-generation universal controller codenamed Igraine, this will likely all tie into the 2028 release too, and I’m hoping we see the new DirectX in the 2024 release of Windows 12, as that then means the platform has time to mature.

Given it takes years to make AAA games, this all adds up, laying the foundation now fits in with the 3-4 year development cycle needed, at a minimum, to create next-generation games and mature the software behind new ideas like this.

Now, we play the waiting game.