Next year marks the 25th anniversary of Xbox, but one of the console’s original team members, Laura Fryer, is openly questioning one element of Microsoft’s gaming division. Fryer–who no longer works for Xbox–recently shared her response to Microsoft’s recent handheld and console partnerships and concluded that the company „has no desire“ to create hardware anymore.
On her YouTube channel (via IGN), Fryer noted that the upcoming ROG Xbox Ally handheld devices won’t have any exclusive games to drive sales and added that Microsoft’s partnerships with Asus on the handheld and AMD on the next generation of Xbox reflects a dim future for its consoles.
„Obviously, as one of the founding members of the Xbox team, I’m not pleased with where things are today,“ said Fryer. „I don’t love watching all of the value that I helped create slowly get eroded away. I’m sad because, from my perspective, it looks like Xbox has no desire–or literally can’t–ship hardware anymore. So, this partnership is about a slow exit from the hardware business completely. Personally, I think Xbox hardware is dead.“