14 DAY TRIAL // The next-gen Xbox One console is future-proofed by Microsoft thanks to the separation between the environment that runs games and the one that runs the general interfaces and applications, as the company can easily improve one or the other without worrying about repercussions.
The Xbox One is set to make its debut on November 22 and Microsoft is quite confident in the next-gen console and about the lengthy life ahead of it, especially since the Xbox 360 has been around for almost eight years.
According to Microsoft's Albert Penello, the longevity of the Xbox 360 wasn't planned outright but, thanks to upgrades in terms of interface like the Next Xbox Experience, things turned out really well.
"A lot of people don't realize this, in the old days of gaming--and I've been in this business for a long time--if you wanted a new dash…you bought a new console, that's when a new UI came in. When we did NXE, we changed up the blades to that new design, that was like revolutionary. And that's one of the things that has allowed the Xbox 360 to endure. But we didn't build the system anticipating that we were going to do that," he told GameSpot.
With the Xbox One, however, Microsoft deliberately kept the gaming side and the app side separate to make sure that upgrading one or the other won't result in any problems.
"So, you probably heard us talk about the Xbox One architecture; this idea that we have multiple environments that the box can run in. That's probably the least publicized but the most significant thing that we're doing in the system to keep it future-proofed."
The two sides of the next-gen console will ensure that any upgrades will improve that separate side, as well as the whole Xbox One experience.
"We architected Xbox One so that the game environment and the application environment are totally independent. So the game performance, just like a game console; developers can write to the metal, keep making the games better and better and better."
"And we have this other area over here that we can play in that can run on top of it, that can run side-by-side; you can have current things running without touching the game. That's going to give us a lot more flexibility to adapt and change than we had on the Xbox 360."
The Xbox One is set to make its debut on November 22 in 13 markets around the world.