Will the Xbox One X get exclusive content? “We want to empower the developer to make the choices for themselves,” says Microsoft

By Matt Martin

VP of Xbox and Windows Mike Ybarra has raised the possibility of different content for the different Xbox One hardware.

Although the company line before launch of the Xbox One X on November 7 is that it should have parity with games and content on the Xbox One S, Ybarra said that ultimately it will come down to a decision by developers about specific features.

“I think largely we want to empower the developer to make the choices for themselves,” Ybarra told VG247 when asked if future content or features could be locked to the Xbox One X.

“There will be a premise of look, games have to run on both. Of course X is going to have better visuals, maybe a higher frame rate… It’s up to the developer. It depends on what they want to do.

“But in general if I go buy a copy of Game X from the store I can plug it into X, I can plug it into S and I’ll have a great time with that.”

Ybarra said that players will see and feel a difference between the same game on Xbox One X and Xbox One S, so there’s already a divergence between the two platforms in terms of feature sets.

“Well, there’s a fine line here,” he said. “First, we approach it as a family of devices. When you approach it like that, there’s a consistency level, an expectation that if you’re on S or X, that must be met.

“Of course X is going to have better visuals, maybe a higher frame rate… It’s up to the developer. It depends on what they want to do.”

“Now, if I’m on an X and I bring up or load a game, it’s going to be faster because the overall system is so much faster than an S. So you’re going to have that difference that exists. If I was to launch Sea of Thieves, it’ll load faster on the X than the S. Consumers will expect that – they’ll see, they’ll feel that difference.

“But from a look and feel I want to keep this as consistent as possible across those devices,” he added.