Leak reveals Microsoft's next Xbox with familiar design in white — alleged 'Brooklin' revamp is dead

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A previously leaked Series X digital refresh pointed toward a revised design, but the current console is simply a palette swap without disc support

Official Xbox Series X logo, in white
Official Xbox Series X logo, in white (Image credit: Microsoft)

Amidst the ongoing news related to upcoming game consoles, Exputer received exclusive photographs of a white Xbox Series X without a Blu-ray drive from its sources. This white disc-less Xbox Series X aligns with the recent spotting of a new Xbox development kit and the past leak of a disc-less Series X refresh. However, that refresh, dubbed "Brooklin," had a different, rounded design.

Below, we've embedded a tweet from Twitter user @Wario64 showcasing three photographs of Microsoft's seemingly imminent Xbox Series X refresh.

Exputer's reporting points toward this All Digital Xbox Series X including upgraded components, including the heatsink. This may mean that internally, other "Brooklin" improvements, like reduced PSU power, may still be on the table, though we'll have to wait for a full release for confirmation. 

It was reported that the Brooklin design refresh would include a 2TB NVMe SSD, doubling the storage on the current Xbox Series X. We'd hope that this new All Digital Xbox Series X would also gain the same storage upgrade.

For the most part, though, this really does just look like a white refresh of the Xbox Series X without a disc drive. Considering Xbox's past comments about its commitment to physical media, this being its next major console in a year when we're also expecting the PS5 Pro seems somewhat questionable. Hopefully, considering the re-use of the original Series X chassis design, there's at least an appropriate price drop for removing the disc drive.

If Xbox players are lucky, the competition against this Series X refresh offered by the PS5 Pro may push Microsoft's plans for a more powerful Xbox console to market sooner than the originally leaked date of 2028. Otherwise, Xbox could lose the console performance crown it earned with the original Series X.

Christopher Harper
Christopher Harper
Contributing Writer

Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.

1 Comment Comment from the forums
  • Giroro
    "Leak" = something we all already knew about for over a year from public records.

    I regret buying my Series X at $350. Not worth the money at all. So, I would value an Xbox that can't do the most useful thing and Xbox does (play UHD movies) significantly lower than that.
    Maybe $250 with the disc drive, $150 without... maybe less. It's biggest competition are streaming sticks that are way more compact, more efficient, serve fewer ads, don't charge an infinite-money-forever subscription fee to access the internet, and cost under $50.
    My understanding is the Series S isn't very popular, even by Xbox standards. So a bigger, more expensive Series S that pretty much does the same things is not a smart idea.

    Why they want to refresh and stretch out a generation to 10+ years when customers rejected their concept by year 2 is beyond me. The opportunity cost in wasted resources has got to be too huge to ignore.

    Alternatively, they could just make an overwhelming number of great exclusive games for the platform and release them really soon... But we all know that's never going to happen. If they can't figure out how to convince people to make new games for it in the 4 years it's been out, then it's not going to be any better at year 5, or 6, or 10, or 15.
    If MS were smart they would act fast to stop doubling-down on failure. Write off this entire generation as a Covid loss, page-1 refresh of leadership, and restart a new generation with a new concept from scratch by 2025.
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