Xbox as an app on your TV? It could be appearing in 2021


Microsoft is possibly the most interesting company to watch in gaming at the moment.

Their approach to the next-gen, with a powerful Series X and a cheap Series S, is one thing, but when you factor in services like Game Pass and xCloud you end up with a company that's no longer all-in on their own consoles.

They could be the reason the industry changes in the future, and it may well be that the way they're doing things becomes the norm in a few years.

Well, it turns out that they're nowhere near finished yet.

What if your TV had an Xbox app?

In an interview with The Verge, the head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, has said that they could try turning Xbox into an app for smart TVs.

The interviewer asked, "What’s stopping you from saying, okay, Xbox is an app, it has minimum hardware specs, and we’re just going to run it on a smart TV?"

To which, Spencer said "I think you’re going to see that in the next 12 months. I don’t think anything is going to stop us from doing that."

If you think about the way Microsoft has been pumping out services recently it makes sense that this would be a logical step in the future.

READ MORE: Xbox Series X restock date and availability tracker

What else for the future of Xbox?

Spencer gave some stunning answers in the interview, but we're still going to focus on this one question.

"I do think you’re going to see hardware change. Frankly, even on the console, we see this. One of the primary things that people do on game consoles is watch video; they watch Netflix and Disney Plus and Hulu and everything else. What it’s meant is we actually have to build out an app platform inside of a game console so that these providers can go and build their Spotify app and the different things that run."

It's an important thing to keep in mind about the way gaming is changing, but it's not the end of consoles as he sees it.

"I just push back a little bit on — this is not exactly what you said — that when streaming comes, all the consoles go away, or all my local devices that play video games go away. I’m not quite as sold on that. I think we just have to be nimble and watching what players want."

READ MORE: How to build an Xbox Series X from PC components

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