The Next Xbox and Buying Nintendo: Inside the Massive Microsoft Leak

Microsoft’s court battle with the Federal Trade Commission over its seemingly inevitable acquisition of Activision-Blizzard may have ended in a decisive victory, but could have cost the company years of confidentiality for future Xbox-related projects.

Newly unredacted FTC v. Microsoft documents, revealed via mistake, have blown the company’s gaming playbook for the next five years wide open. The FTC has denied responsibility for the (now deleted) documents being uploaded to a court website, and Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley has placed the blame on Microsoft, which she says accidentally sent the documents for upload despite them containing non-public information. In a post on X and an internal memo sent to employees and obtained via The Verge, Xbox head Phil Spencer confirmed that Microsoft had "unintentionally disclosed" the information.

From internal emails between executives and a collection of internal presentations, the leak is easily one of the biggest in the company’s history.

Here’s some of the biggest reveals regarding the future of Xbox. Note that some of these leaks might not relate to Xbox's current strategy: Spencer's memo to Microsoft employees said "many of the [leaked] documents are over a year old and our plans have evolved," while his post on X promised that the company will "share the real plans when we are ready."

The Next Xbox Is Set for 2028

The current lineup of Xbox consoles, the Xbox Series X and S, are only about three years old. But it seems that Microsoft is already looking to the future.

Perhaps the biggest revelation to come out of the court filings is Microsoft’s plans for the Xbox Series successor. Known only as “Xbox Next-Gen,” according to an internal presentation, this new console would feature cloud processing as a prominent feature. What this means is developers would be able to offload certain processing tasks for games to the internet. By doing so, that allows the actual console hardware to dedicate its computing more efficiently, leading to presumably more impressive results on screen.

“Our Vision: Develop 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,” the presentation reads. “Optimized for real time game play and creators, we will enable new levels of performance beyond the capabilities of the client hardware alone.”

The console is planned for sometime during 2028, according to another leaked slide. If this remains true, the new console would be making good on a key feature of the Xbox One that never truly came to fruition.

While some more recent games like 2021’s Microsoft Flight Simulator have leveraged the cloud to help render near photorealistic landscapes, the tech is still in its infancy.

The presentation also mentions a “$99 consumer or handheld device,” though it’s not clear if this piece of hardware would be for playing games natively, or specifically for cloud streaming (a la the recently announced PlayStation Portal).  

The Xbox Series X and S Could Get New Models Next Year

Even if plans for the next Xbox console are underway, Microsoft still has plenty of unfinished business for its current systems.

Both the Xbox Series X and S are getting mid-generation hardware refreshes, according to the court documents. The more powerful Xbox Series X will be getting a slimmed-down, cylindrical model that boasts improved Wi-Fi connectivity, improved energy sustainability with a low-power standby mode that is 20% more efficient than the current model, USB-C ports, Bluetooth 5.2 and 2 terabytes of storage. Dubbed the “Brooklin” internally, the more diminutive Series X would remove the disc-drive, likely a key part of how Microsoft is planning to make the console smaller than the exceptionally large original.

The Series S, Microsoft’s entry-level Xbox, is also seemingly getting a refresh, though the improvements are much more subtle. The new model, dubbed the “Ellewood” internally, will feature improved Wi-Fi and Bluetooth like the slim Series X.

The two consoles would receive staggered releases in 2024. The Ellewood would drop at the end of August, while the Brooklin would drop at the end of October.

Microsoft Is Finally Updating the Xbox Controller

The new Xbox consoles would launch alongside a new controller, according to court documents. Dubbed the “Sebile” internally, the new Xbox controller would feature an accelerometer, speakers and “precision” haptic feedback, marking a significant step up from the company’s current offering. The new controller would also feature a two-tone design, with black handles, bumpers, and triggers. A white finish would adorn the gamepad section, all while the controller itself retainins the same ergonomics of the current hardware.  

The new design would make the controller more comparable to the PlayStation 5’s DealSense, which features much of the same tech, as well as resistive triggers. However, the new Xbox controller would make some additional, more original improvements over the original: quieter buttons, modular thumbsticks, direct-to-cloud connection for improved cloud gaming, and the ability to wake the controller up by lifting it.

The Sebile is going to be announced later this year, according to the leaked presentation slide, with a release date set for the end of May 2024. It will ship with the new, redesigned Xbox consoles, according to the presentation.

Could We Get Bethesda Remasters?

Starfield, Bethesda Game Studios’ space-themed role-playing game, has quickly become Xbox’s biggest success in years. Now, thanks to the court documents, we have an idea of what may be next for the storied developer.

According to another leaked internal presentation from 2020, Bethesda had plans to remaster both 2006’s The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and 2008’s Fallout 3 before Microsoft acquired its parent company ZeniMax later that year.

Included on a list titled “ZeniMax Management Forecast,” both of these titles were set to release in Fiscal Year 2022 and 2024 respectively. The list also includes a game called Doom: Year Zero, likely the third installment in the Doom reboot series that began in 2016. Additionally, a sequel to 2021’s Ghostwire: Tokyo as a well as a third Dishonored game.

It should be noted that this internal presentation is more than three years old as of this leak, and may no longer reflect what the company’s plans are now that Bethesda has been acquired by Microsoft. However, it's hard to imagine Microsoft canceling any of these projects, particularly as it continues to push the value of Game Pass.

Microsoft Wants To Buy Nintendo

Microsoft would love to acquire Nintendo, but knows that it isn’t likely anytime soon.

In a series of emails between head of Xbox Phil Spencer and Microsoft executive Takeshi Numoto in August 2020, the two exchanged words about the possibility of Nintendo merging with the American tech giant. Numoto asked Spencer why Microsoft wasn’t angling to purchase a gaming institution like Nintendo, according to the leaked emails.

In response, Spencer explained why such an industry-changing acquisition isn’t likely to happen.

“I totally agree that Nintendo is THE prime asset for use in gaming,” Spencer writes in his reply to Numoto. “The unfortunate (or fortunate for Nintendo) situation is that Nintendo is sitting on a big pile of cash.”

Spencer’s statement here was true in 2020, three years after the launch of the mega-successful Nintendo Switch, and remains true today. Following the release of the Super Mario Bros. Movie and critically acclaimed The Legend Of Zelda Tears Of The Kingdom earlier this year, Nintendo is on track to have a tremendous fiscal year leading into the launch of the heavily-rumored next console.

But Nintendo’s newfound success doesn’t mean Microsoft was willing to give up hope entirely. Spencer even made reference to the idea of buying out Valve, the developer behind the biggest online retailer for PC games, Steam.

“I don’t see an angle to a near term mutually agreeable merger of Nintendo and [Microsoft] and I don’t think a hostile action would be a good move so we are playing the long game,” Spencer wrote. “But our [Board Of Directors] has seen the full writeup on Nintendo (and Valve) and they are fully supportive on either if the opportunity arises as am I.”

Nintendo and Microsoft have been cordial in recent years, especially compared to the computing company’s icy-relationship with Sony. Microsoft has actively published some of their games, including Cuphead and Minecraft, on the Nintendo Switch. The two companies also favored crossplay between their respective consoles when Sony was actively resisting the proposition.