Xbox President Talks The Future Of Its Hardware And The Importance Of Backward Compatibility

Sarah Bond, the president of Xbox, stated that she believes her main focus at Xbox has been on “engineering and building that next-generation hardware experience.”

In an interview with Bloomberg, Bond continued to explain that Microsoft’s focus with Xbox is to deliver “the biggest leap ever” for its next-gen hardware, which includes “power and performance.” This does align with what Bond has said in the past regarding how Xbox’s next-gen hardware will focus on “delivering the biggest technological leap ever in a generation.”

As the interview continued, she explained how Xbox is ensuring backward compatibility will be a part of its next-gen hardware.

“It’s also about the ability to be able to play all of the games. I mean, we have people who’ve been playing on Xbox for decades and invested thousands and thousands of dollars and hours with us. And [we want to enable them] to take all those games with them into the hardware of the future.”

Bond went on to explain that when she became president of Xbox late last year, one of the first things she did was create a team dedicated to backward compatibility. She then went on to say that the Xbox team is committed to the idea of being able to play their games wherever they are.

“So our long-term commitment to cross-play is part of that and our commitment to cross-progression and cloud saves. So you can pick up on one device and you can play on another is a part of that.”

Recently, Xbox has found itself in some hot water after the company shut down four of its studios, including Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks, and then again by trying to defend its decision to shut down the studios.