Leak Reveals New Cylindrical Xbox Series X ‘Refresh’ Coming In 2024

When you try to acquire a company for $69 billion, turns out the legal process that accompanies that may have some…unintended consequences.

We have learned an incredible amount about both Microsoft and Sony from documents of internal emails and communications in these cases, but the most recent one, the FTC v. Microsoft case, has just accidentally leaked its biggest reveal so far, an entirely new Xbox Series X, supposedly coming in November 2024

This info appears to have accidentally been released into the public from the FTC case, and it’s an incredibly detailed look at the new, cylindrical, disc-less 2 TB Xbox Series X, currently codenamed Brooklin (yes, no “y”).

So, what’s being upgraded? It is not a massive power upgrade the way a “Pro” refresh may be, a notion Microsoft has previously discounted, even though a PS5 Pro is reportedly planned from Sony. However, there are indeed upgrades to the console:

• More internal storage (2 TB)
• Faster Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi 6E radio)
• Reduced Power Use (its new standby mode uses 20% power of the current mode)
• A more immersive controller, which has its own slide and includes a rechargeable battery, new thumbsticks, more haptic feedback, quieter buttons and an accelerometer for gyro use. The controller can be used with current Series Xs, naturally.

The console is also uh, a cylinder, the exact opposite of the current square refrigerator design. It will be the same price, $500, hence the “refresh.” Again, despite some upgrades, it is not the leap in power we saw between the Xbox One and Xbox One X last generation.

If those leaks weren’t enough, there’s also a roadmap in here that shows a (somewhat less extensive) Series S refresh in September 2024 and the Brooklin Xbox Series X launch in November 2024, with a suggestion that additional storage options would be offered in 2025.

What to make of all this? The obvious downside to Microsoft here is the timing, as they obviously would have wanted to reveal all this on their own terms, but these documents feel like practically the exact sort of thing they would have used in such a presentation. The fact that this is a “refresh” and not a distinct upgrade in power would suggest that many current Series X owners would not feel the need to shell out another $500 the way many may have for the Xbox One X. But the identical price would suggest the idea is that if you were to buy an Xbox in late 2024 and beyond, this would be the one going forward. I don’t see why the original would need to exist from here past selling out its existing stock, though perhaps it would get a sharp price discount.

This is far from the only breaking Microsoft story as a result of this new document cache, as we also have a nice little email where Phil Spencer reveals that the Microsoft board supported buying Nintendo or Valve in 2020. Fun times ahead today digging through all these.

Follow me on Twitter, Threads, YouTube, and Instagram.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.