By Jordan Novet
Publication Date: 2026-03-11 18:30:00
Fairgoers play at the Xbox booth at the Cologne Trade Fair Center during the opening day of Gamescom 2025 in Cologne, Germany, on August 20, 2025.
Ying Tang | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Microsoft said Wednesday that it will send video game developers prototypes of its next-generation Xbox console in 2027, as the company tries to narrow the gap with Nintendo and Sony.
The hardware will feature a custom chip from Advanced Micro Devices, Jason Ronald, a vice president in Microsoft’s Xbox division, said in a blog post.
“It delivers an order of magnitude leap in ray tracing performance and capability, integrates intelligence directly into the graphics and compute pipeline, and drives meaningful gains in efficiency, scale, and visual ambition,” Ronald wrote. “The result is more realistic, immersive, and dynamic worlds for players.”
Microsoft’s announcement comes weeks after the company said longtime gaming head Phil Spencer was retiring, and would be replaced by artificial intelligence…
