Microsoft has Officially Discontinued the Xbox One X and Xbox One S All-Digital Edition

Rumours started last week over Reddit before validity was practically later confirmed by the Xbox One series being labelled as “discontinued” by retailers. After some confusing back and forth, including a Twitter comment by Dan Tavares, Xbox console business planning lead, saying it was merely a SKU number issue, Microsoft has given an official statement to Eurogamer with some clarification. 

Xbox One S is very much still available, we just changed SKU numbers. Amazon is just messy in how they show products.

— Dan Tavares (@HonestHippo) July 4, 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. Xbox One S will continue to be manufactured and sold globally.

So, building up to the launch of the Xbox Series X, the discontinued Xbox One consoles only include the Xbox One X and the all-digital version of the Xbox One S. The original Xbox One S, the one with the disc drive, will remain in production as what we will be effectively deeming as “The Discount Xbox”, for players who won’t be able to afford the Series X or simply aren’t ready to make the shift towards the next generation.  

 The Xbox One X was released 3 years ago, back in June 2017. It’s unique selling point back then was its 6 teraflops of GPU performance, as Microsoft’s marketing was all about focusing on processing power and being a “monster” at the time. This was before moving to its more successful model of choice and service for the player around Game Pass. For comparison’s sake, the new Xbox Series X’s GPU performance clocks in at just over 12 teraflops. 

The Xbox One S All-Digital Edition, however, was only launched just over a year ago in March 2019. While it sold quite well, it can be easy to understand that Microsoft wants to keep the manufacture of last-gen hardware-focused to a single model. All of those different “x”-featured console names were too confusing anyway. 

A second next-gen console on the other hand, “Project Lockhart” or “Xbox Series S” is set to be announced in August as well. For the next generation of games though, Microsoft is gearing up for the Xbox Game Showcase, taking place on July 23.