It appears that Microsoft is currently working on two separate next generation Xbox consoles. These two consoles are supposedly codenamed Anaconda and Lockhart respectively. First reported by Windows Central, these two consoles are set to be somewhat of successors to the Xbox One S and Xbox One X current generation systems. Both the Anaconda and the Lockhart consoles seem to be set for a release by holiday 2020.
The news of next generation consoles isn’t too surprising as Xbox head Phil Spencer said that the company was “deep into architecting the next Xbox consoles” at E3 this year. The new Lockhart console seems to be the successor to the Xbox One S as a more affordable model for consumers. This Lockhart model will allegedly be around as powerful as the current Xbox One X with “refinements under the hood.” The Anaconda will be a more expensive, high end, and powerful model similar to what the Xbox One X is now. This Anaconda model is set to provide “a cutting-edge console gaming experience.” The report also suggests that Microsoft is also looking into technology to “dramatically reduce” load times for the Anaconda which may include more SSD storage. This model may also serve as a dev kit as well.
This news for Microsoft’s possible plans for next generation efforts follow reports of the company is working with AMD on their next console, on top of the fact that they also plan to release a disc-less version of the Xbox One sometime next year. The company has also announced that Project xCloud, a new game streaming service, is in development. On the software front, Microsoft has been in the process of acquiring new studios. The company announced they had acquired five new studios at E3 earlier this year. Following this, they also announced two more studio acquisitions at their X018 event last month.