The fuss started when Thurrott.com spotted a Qualcomm posting referring to “next generation of Surface and Xbox products built on Snapdragon solutions.” That set off the usual frenzy, with some suggesting that Microsoft’s next Xbox might ditch AMD for an Arm-based Snapdragon chip.

It would be a seismic shift. But according to Windows Central's Jez Corden, who broke the original story on Project Kennan, Microsoft’s still firmly in x86 territory for its next Xbox console hardware. Corden's sources confirmed the company isn’t ready to throw Snapdragon at the heart of its gaming empire just yet.

A jump to Arm would wreck the one thing Xbox has consistently done right, preserving your library. Emulating AMD’s architecture on Snapdragon silicon would melt performance.

Most likely, it refers to making Snapdragon-powered Surface devices play nicer with Xbox PC services. Right now, some Copilot+ Surface devices can’t even download many Game Pass titles from the Microsoft Store. So Qualcomm’s remit might be less about powering consoles and more about sorting out this mess on Arm-based PCs.

That said, Microsoft’s been sniffing around device-agnostic compatibility. A recent job listing showed it's hiring for an Xbox compatibility team, which could future-proof them for a post-x86 world. But that's a long-term play, not something arriving with the next Xbox, currently slated around 2027.