Microsoft has officially confirmed that Xbox One consoles discontinued in favour of Xbox Series S and Xbox Series S. So, the manufacturing of all Xbox One consoles has ceased. In fact, it’s not even something that’s only just now happened. According to Xbox, production on all Xbox One consoles – all versions of it – was stopped by the end of 2020. As for why, the answer is simple: to focus on the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles. Interestingly, this seems to be the opposite tact of PlayStation, which has reportedly increased production on the PlayStation 4 due to shortages of the PlayStation 5.
“To focus on production of Xbox Series X / S, we stopped production for all Xbox One consoles by the end of 2020,” said Cindy Walker, senior director of Xbox console product marketing, in a statement provided to The Verge.
Until this confirmation, it was the understanding that all but the Xbox One S had ceased being manufactured. The original Xbox One was discontinued back in 2017, and both the Xbox One X and Xbox One S All-Digital Edition were confirmed to be discontinued in the middle of 2020. “As we ramp into the future with Xbox Series X, we’re taking the natural step of stopping production on Xbox One X and Xbox One S All-Digital Edition,” a statement at the time attributed to a Microsoft spokesperson reads in part. “Xbox One S will continue to be manufactured and sold globally.”
It appears that sometime between July 2020 and December 2020, Microsoft stopped manufacturing even the regular Xbox One S. The discontinuation going largely unnoticed likely has something to do with both the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic disrupting normal life as well as the fact that Xbox has made it a priority to ensure new first-party titles can be played on just about any console from it. And that’s not even getting into the prevalence of the Xbox Game Pass subscription service.