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It’s come to light that Microsoft has quietly ended production of its previous-gen Xbox One console at the end of 2020.
Xbox’s senior director of console product marketing Cindy Walker confirmed the news in a statement to The Verge. “To focus on production of Xbox Series X|S, we stopped production for all Xbox One consoles by the end of 2020,” she said.
The news comes just as it was confirmed by Bloomberg that Sony will continue manufacturing the PlayStation 4 through 2022. This has mainly been in order to alleviate issues with potential customers obtaining the PlayStation 5. It seems that Xbox don’t foresee similar problems with the generational leap between their previous consoles and their current ones.
Xbox has two Series console offerings, which may be a reason for their confidence. There’s the smaller, more affordable Xbox Series S that doesn’t have a disk drive and slightly less powerful components. Presumably then, these may be slightly easier for Microsoft to obtain in the ongoing issues with global supply chains, although this is pure speculation from this writer. Whatever the reason, it seems slightly easier to get hold of a new Xbox at the time of writing.
Games-wise, it’s worth noting that Xbox also offers its Smart Delivery service. This means most games, including recent Xbox exclusives Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5, have also launched on Xbox One. Games can then upgraded for free when they get an Xbox Series X or S to suit their console.
Earlier this week, Xbox head Phil Spencer gave an interview to the New York Times (Paywalled). As part of that, he claimed Xbox Series X|S consoles continue to sell faster than any previous Xbox generation. It echoes a similar announcement Xbox previously made back in June.
