According to new documents released as part of the Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit seeking to block Microsoft's acquisition of Activision, Microsoft is looking to launch the successors to the Xbox Series X and Series S in 2028, Axios reported, At least that's how it was understood in 2022, as outlined in an internal chat log between Microsoft executives at the time.

The 2028 launch plan was mentioned in a May 2022 meeting attended by more than a dozen Microsoft executives, including CEO Satya Nadella, CFO Amy Hood, and head of gaming Phil Spencer, the document states. During that discussion, one attendee asked the gaming leadership team whether the new Xbox console would continue to fix the hardware standard or move in a new direction. One member of the group stated that a fixed hardware standard would be beneficial to developers and would mean that all game makers would be on the same playing field, as opposed to the Wild West seen with the PC.

Kevin Gamil, corporate vice president of the gaming ecosystem, responded that Microsoft has "already begun this journey" for more flexibility with the Xbox One and Xbox One X, and more recently with the current Xbox Series X|S.

"The 10th generation needs to be even more flexible while still allowing creators to take advantage of unique hardware features," he added.

It is likely that the participants in these internal chats did not expect their statements to be made public, so we will have to take it all with a grain of salt for now. However, the launch target is consistent with a statement released by Microsoft's lawyers in June that the next-generation console is slated for a 2028 launch date. This latest document suggests that Microsoft is at least considering releasing different versions of the next Xbox console or even modularizing it like a PC.

All of these court documents relate to Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard and the ongoing controversy over what it would mean for the future of Call of Duty and other popular video game series. The legal battle has already unearthed a lot of useful inside information, and the news that has come to light this week is not just about the target console release date.

A set of internal 2021 emails between Microsoft executives revealed that Microsoft was planning to stream PC games through its Xbox Cloud Gaming service, The Verge reported. Because the service runs on the Xbox Series X's dedicated chip, cloud streaming is currently limited to Xbox titles. However, when rumors surfaced that the now-defunct Google Stadia would become a white-label cloud gaming service for developers, Xbox began developing a competing service.

In July 2021, Nadella asked Spencer, Kareem Chowdhry, Microsoft's head of cloud gaming, and Sarah Bond, Xbox's head of creator experience, to develop the company's Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform to stream PC games on Xbox Cloud Gaming, Spencer emailed. Spencer responded that Microsoft has confirmed that it is working on a solution using Azure servers to allow native PC games to be streamed from the cloud. Microsoft could offer this service to other companies, he added, and Choudhry corroborated this in the email chain, revealing that Microsoft is working on streaming PC games on the cloud as early as July 2021

He added that Microsoft is working on streaming PC games over the cloud as early as July 2021.

Microsoft has been hinting for some time now that Xbox Cloud Gaming could soon support PC games. In the past year, Microsoft has partnered with several tech companies, including NVIDIA and EE, to build a cloud computing infrastructure; Microsoft is also beta testing Xbox Cloud Gaming to support mouse and keyboard for Xbox Cloud Gaming.