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Mike Straw·
NewsRumorsXbox Series X
··2 min read

New Claim Suggests Next Xbox Console Will Launch In 2026

Next Xbox Console 2026

A new claim from a Call of Duty data miner suggests that the next Xbox console could launch as soon as 2026. The console would also feature that year’s Call of Duty as a launch title.

“Hearing from trusted sources that the next Xbox is planned to be released in late 2026,” The Ghost of Hope wrote. “Very likely that COD2026 is a day one release for it.”

Call of Duty 2026 is being developed by Infinity Ward. It’s also worth noting that Ghost of Hope has sources within Activision, which could be where his information is coming from.

Microsoft has gone on record multiple times in saying that a next-generation Xbox console would be coming. In an episode of the official Xbox podcast in February Xbox president Sarah Bond said that the company was exited about what’s coming with future Xbox hardware.

“We’re also invested in the next-generation roadmap,” she said. “What we’re really focused on there is delivering the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation, which makes it better for players and better for creators and the visions that they’re building.”

In April, according to an internal email, she reiterated the company was “moving full speed ahead” on the next system.

As far as a timeline for a next-gen console goes, it was discovered as part of the case investigation Microsoft’s purchase of Activision that the belief was that next-gen consoles from both Microsoft and Sony wouldn’t be coming until 2028. The document sourced in the case was from 2022.

In it’s most recent earnings, however, Microsoft says that Xbox hardware sales were down 31% year over year. That could change the timeline for getting its next console out the door.

Aside from a next-gen system, a new white Xbox Series X is expected to be released at some point.

It’s worth noting that nothing regarding the next generation Xbox console has been confirmed by Microsoft, and likely won’t be addressed. So, with any rumor like this that hasn’t been confirmed or independently verified by Insider Gaming, please take the claims with a grain of salt.

What do you make of the next Xbox possible coming in 2026? For more Insider Gaming, read about Redfall getting one final update as Arkane Austin is shut down, and subscribe to the official Insider Gaming Newsletter.

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Mike Straw
Mike has been covering the gaming industry since 2012, and has reported on some of the largest events in the industry while also working as an investigative reporter. Outside of gaming, Mike was a beat reporter for various outlets covering the NHL for years before moving to game journalism full time. When he's not writing, you can find Mike playing various turn-based strategy games and roguelikes.

12 Comments

    1. Sony and Microsoft plan next-generation hardware in 2026 because of GDDR7. Current consoles are limited by memory bandwidth. This is reason why there are no performance differences between RDNA2 and RDNA3. RDNA3 use ‘dual issue’ compute units so it should be faster but it isn’t. Compute units can’t fetch data because GDDR6 is too slow. You will see huge performance boost on GPU with GDDR7

      2025 – GDDR7 on PC
      2026 – GDDR7 on consoles

  2. The current team has to be fired if they want another console to sell and an actual rebrand is needed. Bring back Ed Fries, Sheamus, and hire Cliff Bleszinski and John Carmack to be heads of game development Warren Spector too since they’ve built successful AAA game studios that can deliver. Cliff if he had delivered earlier because funding would have delivered before Fortnite and Overwatch then his games would be massive we’d be crediting him for everything.

  3. This helps no one they need to go back to the original Xbox logo and just that culture back then Xbox had games imagine if the same team was in charge with what Xbox has now and if they had this budget Phil gets.

  4. Why? They have no games
    Just buy another publisher instead or buy 2 or 3 that would be more useful

    1. You know it’s funny, people say Xbox has no games but they’ve actually released more first party titles than PlayStation this generation and since they own activision and Bethesda they own far more IPs as well.

      2. The issue is that Microsoft leadership has recently been pressuring XBox to improve profit margins, and GamePass has likely reached a saturation point so subscriptions are unlikely to increase much. That’s what led to the recent decision to release games on Playstation.

        Bond recently said there shouldn’t/won’t be any “red line” on first party games being sold on Playstation. So yes, Microsoft has IP but there’s absolutely zero guarantee *any* of them will remain exclusive to a future XBox console. In fact, there’s significant reason to be skeptical any of them will. The sales numbers of some of the XBox games currently on Playstation are likely making Microsoft leadership pretty happy.

        All this is why some people say XBox has “no games.”

    2. I’ve heard they would go after Netflix but they might buy WB as a whole then the publishers like EA and Take Two.

    3. They really should Phil, Satya, and Bill Gates should pull strings to buy EA, Take Two, and Ubisoft get the regulators to back down.

  5. This doesn’t make sense to me.

    Microsoft has admitted they’re quite unlikely to get people who only own a single console to switch from Playstation to XBox because a gamer would be giving up their digital collection of games to do it. The console “war” ended with the XB1 generation.

    To me, the only way Microsoft could close the almost certain lead Sony will have next generation (by vertue of PS5 owners upgrading to a PS6) is to grow the overall pie: Sell their next console to new console gamers and convince Playstation owners to buy a second console. How realistic are those possibilities? This gen nearly 50% of PS5 owners have a Switch and only about 20% have an XBox.

    It seems like Microsoft’s strategy here is mostly a hope that Series X/S owners will remain loyal and fork over $500 only six years (or less) after they bought their current console. That’s a *really* risky strategy, and it likely only financially eventually gets them back to basically the same point they’re at now.

    I guess I can see COD being somewhat of a “system seller,” but that’s only if the next XBox significantly beats the PS6 to market. Even then, I’m skeptical. There are going to be fewer and fewer exclusive games because development just costs too much, but of the few exclusives that will probably still exist next gen, Sony’s got most of them and less of a financial reason to put them on Microsoft’s console than Microsoft has to sell their first party games everywhere it can. That financial reason is Microsoft leadership leaning on XBox’s leadership and pressuring them to improve their margins. How is spending millions on new console development (and likely initially selling that console at a loss) going to help their margins??

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