Microsoft’s Office Tour for Xbox Ally Handheld Shows Where it is Also Prototyping Next-Gen Xbox

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So, Microsoft’s been making a lot of noise about the ROG Ally and Ally X handhelds, but it turns out they’re *also* working on the next Xbox! I recently saw a segment on Good Morning America where the hosts got a sneak peek inside Microsoft Building 87. Xbox president Sarah Bond and Carl Ledbetter, who heads up design for Xbox devices, gave them the tour. It was pretty cool to get a glimpse of what they’re cooking up behind the scenes!

The tour mainly focused on the ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X, with Bond and Ledbetter demonstrating the devices and highlighting the building’s 3D printing facilities for rapid prototyping. However, one area of the building wasn’t featured during the tour.

Bond described the area as the hub for designing, building, and testing the next Xbox. She emphasized its secrecy, stating that they rarely give anyone access.

It’s not surprising to see a testing room appear, as rumors about the company’s next console have been circulating for a while. A recent report suggests Microsoft is planning the launch of the next Xbox, with a target release date around 2027, and has been discussing this with its partners.

Sources say the next console will be very powerful, running on a new AMD chip called Magnus. This chip combines two parts: one handles the processing, like the ‘brain’ of the system, and the other is a graphics processor built on the same technology as AMD’s Radeon desktop graphics cards.

The next Xbox is anticipated to have a powerful processor with 3 high-performance Zen 6 cores and 8 efficient Zen 6c cores. These cores will share a 12 MB cache to speed up data access. The graphics card will feature 68 RDNA5 processing units and 4 shader engines. The entire chip is expected to have 24 MB of L2 cache, a significant increase – about five times more – than the current Xbox Series X.

The next Xbox will use a 192-bit bus to manage memory, and while the exact amount of RAM hasn’t been confirmed, it’s likely to come in three options: 24GB, 36GB, or 48GB. It’s also expected to include a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) capable of up to 110 trillion operations per second, or 46 trillion operations in a power-saving mode. The entire system is anticipated to use between 250 and 350 watts of power.

Reports suggest Sony’s new console uses significantly less power than the Xbox, with the Xbox’s chip consuming about 70% more. However, the Xbox’s processor is estimated to be around 30-35% more powerful than the processor in Sony’s new console.

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2025-10-16 15:12