For those wondering why they haven’t been seeing new Xbox Ones around, Microsoft has officially discontinued all models of their previous generation. According to manufacturers, this is not a new thing either, as the previous generation of Xbox consoles was quietly phased out back in 2020.
In a statement made to The Verge, Cindy Walker, senior director of Xbox console product marketing said that in order to “To focus on the production of Xbox Series X / S, we stopped production for all Xbox One consoles by the end of 2020.” This means that for Microsoft the era of the Xbox One, S, and X have officially been brought to an end.
New units of the previous generation might still pop up in stores as Microsoft still has some backfill of the units, but once those units sell through the only way to get one will be used. Currently, most stores have seen stocking shortages of both new and used units, as well as the Xbox Series X|S, due to chip shortages and supply chain issues.
This news follows shortly after the announcement Sony planned to produce more of their PlayStation 4 units in order to offset the shortage of PlayStation 5 units. Since most major first-party games for the PlayStation will be released across generations the goal is to keep players in the Sony ecosystem until this supply need can be met.
In fairness, the decision to discontinue their previous generation so early feels odd given their strategy. Many games releasing have one version on the platform that works across all their consoles. With the addition of Game Pass, it is also easy to find a range of games across both families of consoles to play. That being said this decision has paid off as Xbox Series S models have become easier to find of the past few months. The Xbox Series X on the other has been more of a challenge to find.
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