Jez Corden recently suggested something that sounds a bit wild at first: the “next Xbox” might be, in essence, a PC wearing a TV-friendly shell. He wasn’t talking about an incremental hardware refresh. He meant a system that feels like a console on your sofa but behaves like a PC under the hood.
What that might look like
Corden says there isn’t a traditional Xbox dev kit floating around; instead, development would resemble PC workflows but with fixed specs so developers can optimize efficiently. That’s familiar territory if you remember Valve’s Steam Machines — compact gaming PCs meant for the living room. They tried and failed, mostly because people either wanted the simplicity of consoles or the power of full desktop rigs.
So why would Microsoft try again?
If the rumor is true, you’d get more freedom. Running Windows on a TV-box Xbox could let you install games from Steam or the Epic Games Store. You could tinker, mod, or even run non-Xbox apps. Sounds liberating, right? It also lines up with Xbox’s push to be everywhere, not just a closed ecosystem.
But there’s a trade-off. Consoles sell because they’re easy. You don’t want to wrestle with drivers or storefront compatibility at 9pm when you just want to play. The Steam Machine stumbled because that friction scared most players off. Will gamers accept a slightly messier experience for the promise of openness? I’m skeptical — at least for mass-market buyers.
A realistic middle ground would be a device that defaults to a polished, console-like UI but quietly supports broader PC functionality for those who want it. That would be smart. It keeps the simplicity most people want while offering room for power users.
What do you think? Would you prefer an Xbox that behaves like a PC, or do you want the comforting predictability of a traditional console? Tell us in the comments and follow us on Facebook and Instagram for more Xbox rumors and breakdowns.
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