Leaked documents that were filed for Microsoft’s court case against the FTC regarding the ABK merger have unfortunately been leaked online. Of course please be sure to approach the information in this article as rumour at this moment in time.
These documents were meant to be kept redacted and were never meant to be released to the public eye, they pretty much show Microsoft’s plans for Xbox hardware for the coming years as well as listing a slate of games that are in the works at Bethesda Studios.
In the leaked documents, cloud and cloud gaming is a big feature, in fact, according to the leaked documents, Xbox’s next generation console will aim to be a ‘hybrid’ game platform that will leverage both the power of the client and the cloud to deliver a deeper and entirely new gaming experience.
Further documents also go on to reveal that Microsoft plans to have cloud-hybrid games in place for 2028.
This should not really come as a major surprise as it has been confirmed in the past that Hideo Kojima is working on a cloud-related game for Microsoft, although we are not sure what exactly that looks like as of yet. We have also seen games such as Flight Simulator and Forza utilise cloud technology in their games, the former streams game data from the cloud as opposed to from your Xbox console. Crackdown 3 also utilised the cloud in order to deliver destructible environments in the game’s multiplayer mode.
Continuing on with the cloud-related news to come from this leak, Xbox’s ‘Project Keystone’ makes an appearance once again. If you are not familiar with Keystone, it was set to be a dedicated Xbox cloud gaming device that Microsoft reportedly shelved back in 2022. However, a leaked document shows that Project Keystone was indeed fully funded by Microsoft, could it be that the once-shelved device, is now back in development? On top of this, it is also mentioned that Xbox want to increase the rollout of their Xbx Cloud Gaming app to even more devices. It also discussed that Xbox wants to upgrade the current server blades for Xbox Cloud Gaming, although, given the recent partnerships that have entered into with services such as GeForce NOW, it could be that these plans have been shelved for the moment.
Another piece of cloud gaming-related news is that documents show that there could be a brand new Xbox controller on the horizon that features ‘precision haptic feedback’ which of course would be a reaction to PlayStations Dualsense controller which has the same feature and quite is quite frankly, fantastic.
However, according to the document the new Xbox controller would also feature ‘direct-to-cloud’. Now if you think of the Google Stadia controller and the Amazon Luna controller which both have this feature it allows low latency gameplay, especially in the cloud and of course being able to seamlessly switch your gaming session between various screens.
Documents also show that Microsoft is aiming to hit 100 million Game Pass subscribers by 203, with the hope that over 30 million of those subscribers will be ‘cloud first’ gamers. Again given the amount of cloud gaming related information from these leaked documents, it certainly does not come as a surprise.
The leaked documents are extensive, the information above is focused on the cloud gaming-related information that has been leaked. Other documents detail how Xbxo are planning a refresh of both the Xbox Series S and X consoles, the latter being a new disc-less model with a cylindrical shape. There is also a document that shows the upcoming game release slate for Bethesda, which includes a new DOOM title as well as Remasters of both Fallout 3 and the Elder Scrolls Oblivion.
Of course, as we stated above, please treat those documents with a pinch of salt at the moment, at the time of writing this there has been no official comment from Microsoft or Xbox on these leaks. If these leaked documents do turn out to be real, it is a real shame that they have been released to the public as they pretty much detail all of Xbox’s future release plans up until 2030 and some of these announcements would have been fantastic announcement moments for Xbox at future showcases etc.
