Mysterious Xbox Dev Kit Breaks Cover, Is An Xbox Pro Game Console Inbound?
With Nintendo sort of playing a different ball game altogether, Microsoft stands as Sony's only real competitor in the console gaming space. Well, Redmond isn't standing still, as it turns out. While estimates place the Xbox Series family as only having moved between one-third to one-half the number of machines as the PlayStation 5, Microsoft might be seeking to gain some momentum in the market by challenging Sony's upgraded system with one of its own.
We say that because of a new leak out of Korea where the South Korean Radio Research Agency—vaguely analogous to the United States' FCC—has certified a new "MS XDK Console". While XDK isn't "Xbox", it does refer to the "Xbox Development Kit" machines that Microsoft distributes to its development partners early, so that they can get started creating software for the new system.
It's not clear exactly what new machine this XDK could be for. There have been rumors for more than a year about a possible portable Xbox with hardware inside similar to a Steam Deck or other Windows handhelds (ROG Ally, Ayaneo, GPD Win, etc.) There's also been a rumor about a supposed all-white refresh of the Xbox Series X system, but that's probably not related to this leak, as it wouldn't require a new devkit.
The idea of a mid-generation refresh is tantalizing for gamers because the current generation of game consoles started at an awkward time, just as real-time ray-tracing was becoming a reality. The PS5 and Xbox Series systems are both based on derivatives of AMD's RDNA 2 hardware, somewhat infamous for its limited ray-tracing ability. If a new machine enables additional ray-tracing capability, we could finally start to see the feature become more mainstream instead of being a luxury reserved for PC gamers on powerful rigs.
