The video game industry has seen its fair share of ups and downs in 2026. Console and game prices are at all-time highs, and despite all of that, some console makers are actively talking about their next-generation consoles. Xbox is at the forefront of this conversation, and despite rising memory costs putting the sustainability of gaming in question, Xbox’s CSO Matthew Ball doesn’t think the console market is done for just yet.
Prices are Up, But We Aren’t Out
A recent interview was held between Christopher Dring of The Game Business and Xbox Chief Strategy Officer Matthew Ball. In this interview, Ball expanded on Xbox’s approach to console-exclusive games, which he firmly believes Xbox Game Studios controls its fate. This is also where he noted that most of the money being made within gaming is being made in the mobile sector of the industry, but this doesn’t mean that Xbox’s investment in the console business is dying.
“We have no desire to move away from the console business. And dying? No. It’s not declining. It is growing. It’s going to have a great year this year. What is important is that we restore that business for us. Do we need to get better at PC? Yes. Do we need to get better at mobile? Yes. But we can’t ask publishers and players to bet on us on other platforms where we are behind, where our technology is inadequate, before we shore up the platform we have, the platform that many believe we’ve mistreated.”
Matthew Ball also believes that younger gamers are actively adopting console gaming, and there shouldn’t be a reason to worry about declining numbers in the future, which has yet to be seen.
The Future of Console Gaming
There is a lot of uncertainty when it comes to the future of gaming. Reading a majority of the headlines being broken today, it is hard to think that things will inherently get better. As we can see, Xbox is having the hard conversations with itself now in order to have a more sustainable future in the gaming space. Whether or not these are the right moves is a whole other conversation as well, but someone has to be the first one to jump, and this time around, Xbox looks to be at the forefront of change.
