The interviewer made a straight question and got a straight answer. The interviewer from Business Insider (i.e. not wccftech&friends) who actually had the conversation with Phil Spencer wrote the single console statement as final.
A straight question but not a straight answer. At no point, even when pressed, would Phil Spencer say they were only releasing one console next year. OTOH, at no point did he say they were releasing more than one console. The wording he chose gives Microsoft the latitude to be correct regardless of whether they release just one console or two consoles.
“Last year we said consoles, and we’ve shipped a console and we’ve now detailed another console. I think that’s plural,” Spencer said.
So, they've shipped one console and they've now talked about another console. So, they've technically fulfilled what he said the prior years without having to involve any other console.
“Technically that is plural,” Spencer said with a laugh after I pushed him on the technicality he invoked. “Right now,” he said, “we’re focused on Project Scarlett and what we put on stage.”
Again, nothing that outright says there is no other console coming next year. Just stating that what they've shipped and shown is technically correct WRT multiple consoles. Even Businessinsider.com is hedging their bets that there might not only be one console next year based on what Phil Spencer has said.
...it just sounds like we’ll only see one in late 2020.
That said, with the information from Thurrott, it seems likely that they might be dropping plans to launch both consoles simultaneously and/or dropping the second console entirely due to developer feedback.
Talking with various people inside and outside of Microsoft, here is my best conclusion as to why the device was removed from the roadmap.
First, developers were having a harder than expected time creating next-generation games that spanned across two systems with various specs. As you might expect, developers were putting a focus on making games that would run well on the lower-end device first and then scaling them up to the higher-speced, Anaconda.
However, that quote doesn't make any sense. Multiplatform developers are going to be making content for both consoles. So the highest quality assets will be used if available.
That speculation only makes sense if the MS console was significantly more powerful than the Sony console (which is highly unlikely). Either that or he's speculating that a lower base Xbox would also limit what developers made for the PlayStation 5. But that wouldn't make sense as the PlayStation 5 is likely going to be the lead platform for most multiplatform developers.
So that speculation would mostly apply to Xbox exclusive developers which would mostly be first party developers. But most if not all Microsoft studios should be experienced with scaling their hardware across a variety of hardware configurations. Especially when Phil has mentioned that Windows PC gaming is a top priority for him. So, all of the MS studios will be expected to be able to scale their games across a very large range of PC hardware.
Regards,
SB
