AMD to design processor for Xbox Next: Team Red extends long-standing Microsoft partnership

(Image credit: Microsoft)

In a rather unexpected turn of events, Microsoft on Tuesday announced that it had extended its hardware partnership with AMD to include next-generation Xbox game consoles as well as portable devices. The partnership is set to last several years and span across multiple generations of desktop and portable hardware.

"I am thrilled to share we have established a strategic multi-year partnership with AMD to co-engineer silicon across a portfolio of devices including our next-generation Xbox consoles, in your living room, and in your hands," said Sarah Bond, president of Microsoft's Xbox business unit.

The announcement is the first official confirmation that Microsoft is prepping a new generation of Xbox consoles for home as well as Xbox-branded portable gaming devices that will be a part of the Xbox ecosystem. As it turns out, all of these gaming systems will continue to use semi-custom processors designed by AMD that will offer considerably higher performance than the existing Scarlett system-on-chips (SoC) powering Xbox Series X while maintaining backwards compatibility. That backwards compatibility likely means continued reliance on Zen CPU cores based on the x86 instruction set architecture (ISA) as well as on AMD's Radeon graphics processing units.

"Together with AMD we are advancing the state of art in gaming silicon to deliver the next generation of graphics innovation to unlock a deeper level of visual quality and immersive gameplay and player experiences enhanced with the power of AI, all while maintaining compatibility with your existing library of Xbox games," said Bond.

Microsoft did not reveal when it expects Xbox Next to become available, though typically the company makes formal announcements of next-generation consoles about 1.5 years before releasing them to market. For example, Microsoft announced its project Scarlett Xbox Series X at E3 trade show in mid-2019 and released it in late 2020.

If the company follows the same release pattern, expect Xbox Next to arrive in time for holiday season 2026. Given the timing, it is reasonable to expect the next Xbox console to use an SoC featuring custom Zen 6 CPU cores and an RDNA 5 GPU, though we are speculating here.

A particularly intriguing part of the announcement is a confirmation of Xbox-branded portable consoles. Although handheld PC gaming systems took off after Valve released its Steam Deck in 2022 and now there are half a dozen interesting competitors, these portable consoles are still a niche market. Nonetheless, it looks like Microsoft Xbox sees a strong potential for portable consoles and plans to release one of its own based on a custom processor.

"At Xbox, our vision is for you to play the games you want, with the people you want, anywhere you want," said Bond. "That is why we are investing in our next-generation hardware lineup, across console, handheld, PC, cloud, and accessories. […] The next generation of Xbox is coming to life, and this is just the beginning. We cannot wait to show you what's next."

The announcement also highlights Microsoft's ambition to support gaming on multiple platforms beyond traditional devices like consoles, handhelds, or PCs, which likely means expanded compatibility between Xbox and Windows machines going forward.

"This is all about building you a gaming platform that is always with you, so you can play the games you want across devices anywhere you want, delivering you an Xbox experience not locked to a single store or tied to one device," added Bond. That is why we are working closely with the Windows team, to ensure that Windows is the number one platform for gaming."

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Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

17 Comments Comment from the forums

bit_user

Heh, if they had been talking to Intel, then I guess the partnership fell victim to Intel's 50% minimum margins policy.

It is cool that both next-gen consoles should now feature AVX-512, especially with Intel finally bringing that back to their client processors.

FWIW, I'd have put odds on Microsoft going with ARM, with their next XBox. Well, I guess it's good that I don't gamble!
Reply
Aurn

“In a rather unexpected turn of events, …”
Why was this unexpected?
Reply
DS426

bit_user said:
Heh, if they had been talking to Intel, then I guess the partnership fell victim to Intel's 50% minimum margins policy.

It is cool that both next-gen consoles should now feature AVX-512, especially with Intel finally bringing that back to their client processors.

FWIW, I'd have put odds on Microsoft going with ARM, with their next XBox. Well, I guess it's good that I don't gamble!
ARM, so Qualcomm? It's an interesting idea, but I don't think MS wants to rock the boat the much, namely the additional challenge in maintaining solid backward compatibility. While Windows on ARM has been around for many years now, it still feels like Windows is the testing grounds, of course making regular users their beta testers like everything else up and down their product stacks.

Probably right on there with Intel's min margins policy. I then naturally wonder if that allows AMD to negotiate slightly better margins since Intel's waterline is known.
Reply
DS426

Aurn said:
“In a rather unexpected turn of events, …”
Why was this unexpected?
Yeah, I took this as some kind of terrible form of humor.
Reply
bit_user

DS426 said:
ARM, so Qualcomm? It's an interesting idea, but I don't think MS wants to rock the boat the much, namely the additional challenge in maintaining solid backward compatibility. While Windows on ARM has been around for many years now, it still feels like Windows is the testing grounds, of course making regular users their beta testers like everything else up and down their product stacks.
Qualcomm would've been the natural choice, but they also could've gone directly to ARM, as they did with their cloud CPUs. Another possibility might've been to use an AMD-designed ARM core, which I had thought might be one of the reasons behind AMD's Soundwave, except I heard a rumor that AMD is licensing designs from ARM for it.

Maybe what kept them in with AMD was the GPU, though. Regardless of what they might want to do on the CPU front, it would have to take a back seat to having the best GPU performance they can afford. RDNA4 looks quite solid, on that front.

The thing that slightly surprises me is how Microsoft was undeterred by AMD's close partnership with Sony.
https://videocardz.com/newz/sony-unveils-project-amethyst-next-gen-ai-enhanced-hardware-in-collaboration-with-amd
Reply
thestryker

bit_user said:
Heh, if they had been talking to Intel, then I guess the partnership fell victim to Intel's 50% minimum margins policy.

It is cool that both next-gen consoles should now feature AVX-512, especially with Intel finally bringing that back to their client processors.

FWIW, I'd have put odds on Microsoft going with ARM, with their next XBox. Well, I guess it's good that I don't gamble!
I think as long as AMD is putting out competitive hardware they've got the consoles on lock due to backwards compatibility. Should Microsoft do more of a convergence between Xbox OS and Windows then maybe that could change, but as things stand the software cost has got to be entering into the equation.
Reply
rluker5

I hope they put in at least Zen 5 for the CPU. This Zen 2 stuff has to be put to rest. Like Jaguar was before, it is the biggest drag on gameplay improvements.

When I heard the Witcher 4 was being designed to run on the equivalent of 10 year old CPUs at 60 fps on UE5 I realized it wasn't going to have appreciable npc ai improvements over the W3. Or have more than token interactions with the environment.

More of the same, but with different lighting, better textures and improved draw distance is just more of the same with improved graphics. May as well just do more remasters at that point.
Reply
Heat_Fan89

bit_user said:
Heh, if they had been talking to Intel, then I guess the partnership fell victim to Intel's 50% minimum margins policy.

It is cool that both next-gen consoles should now feature AVX-512, especially with Intel finally bringing that back to their client processors.

FWIW, I'd have put odds on Microsoft going with ARM, with their next XBox. Well, I guess it's good that I don't gamble!
I did not know that Intel requires 50% margin? I think MS made the right choice going with AMD as they are the preferred CPU X3D choice for gamers. I'm not saying the next XBOX is getting an X3D CPU. :sneaky:
Reply
artk2219

Aurn said:
“In a rather unexpected turn of events, …”
Why was this unexpected?
Microsoft had been very whisy washy on whether they were going with AMD for their next console, and supposedly were considering a mix of ARM for the cpu, or straight up Intel for everything. So they basically pulled a 180 and went from "The future is unclear" to "Ayyyyy MD, YEAH!"
Reply
rluker5

thestryker said:
I think as long as AMD is putting out competitive hardware they've got the consoles on lock due to backwards compatibility. Should Microsoft do more of a convergence between Xbox OS and Windows then maybe that could change, but as things stand the software cost has got to be entering into the equation.
So PC games aren't compatible across different hardware brands? I thought the difference was minimal and that you could play games on GamePass on all sorts of stuff as long as it was compatible with Windows. Every xbox game released since AMD started making Xbox hardware is compatible with PC.

Lock on hardware compatibility, whatever.
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