It sounds like Xbox One will get hardware upgrades

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has hinted that the Xbox One will receive hardware upgrades.

Speaking last week at a Microsoft press event, Spencer likened the Xbox One's future to that of a PC, with upgrades to boost performance.

It's a bold statement - and one which appears to end Microsoft's interest in a console which will remain technically static until the company's next generation box comes around.

"Consoles lock the hardware and the software platforms together at the beginning of the generation. Then you ride the generation out for seven or so years, while other ecosystems are getting better, faster, stronger," Spencer said (thanks, Polygon). "And then you wait for the next big step function.

"When you look at the console space, I believe we will see more hardware innovation in the console space than we've ever seen. You'll actually see us come out with new hardware capability during a generation allowing the same games to run backward and forward compatible because we have a Universal Windows Application running on top of the Universal Windows Platform that allows us to focus more and more on hardware innovation without invalidating the games that run on that platform.

"We can effectively feel a little bit more like we see on PC, where I can still go back and run my old Doom and Quake games that I used to play years ago but I can still see the best 4K games come out and my library is always with me. Hardware innovation continues while the software innovation is able to take advantage and I don't have to jump a generation and lose everything that I played on before."

Microsoft is due to bring Universal Windows Apps to Xbox One in the not-too-distant future.

The idea that games and apps will be supported on Windows 10 devices and Xbox One consoles is not new, but the suggestion that Xbox One may be around for a long while - and kept up to date via hardware upgrades is pretty groundbreaking.

It also sounds like Microsoft is not interested in heading down the route of VR integration for its console - as Sony is with PlayStation VR for PS4.

"We're not really focused right now on adding a VR device to Xbox One," Spencer told Game Informer. "We're really more focused on the open ecosystem of Windows. We see Oculus and HTC and Valve and other people doing great work on Windows and we're supportive of that.

"We're watching how VR evolves. We're participating - we have Minecraft and other things that we're working on in the VR space and with HoloLens as well. Specifically on Xbox One, we're not really focused on bringing a device to that platform."